Tomanka’s Two Tiny Fighters

03/11/2026

Screaming 🥳 HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Liam Lion and Dad today as well as Happy ONE year anniversary of being a NICU family to the Tomankas! Today’s a BIG day!
HELP US LOVE AND CELEBRATE LIAM AND JAKES BIRTHDAYS and their beautiful selfless families anniversary by blessing them and helping us reach our goal in alleviating monetary expenses of their journey.

Every penny helps and donating just $1 each person accumulates relief of monetary stressors during this path going forward with baby Ayla! 💟

You can bless them through the link provided, or Venmo.

Venmo: Kjtomanka2022
Or
https://gofund.me/c723f4686

Tomanka’s Two Tiny Fighters
JakeandKate Tomanka

03/10/2026

Please join us in all we can do from home by helping alleviate medical and travel expenses as they have approximately 6 weeks minimum before their family of 6 will be reunited. Eventually travel, food, and all expenses of being away as well as time off of work sooner than predicted will catch up to them, and we want to bless them by lifting those uncertainties before they happen so they can focus on healing and their family at this time.

https://gofund.me/c723f4686

You don’t have to only use go fund me to donate. Funds can also be sent to them through VENMO: KJTOMANKA2022 to donate funds that reach them faster and go directly to them.
Tomanka’s Two Tiny Fighters
We’ve been asked about cards, flowers, and other gifts— those can be sent to L7 room 709 of the children’s hospital.

From dad this morning-
Ayla AnnaLee Tomanka

Born March 8, 2026 at 12:18 am
4 Lbs 9oz
16.75 in long
Born at 33 weeks 💟🤍
Smallest baby of all of her siblings

AnnaLee — Ann is Kate’s grandma sandy Sandra Reicks and my moms middle name, and Lee is grandma shells middle name, so they were combined. Evie’s is Mae after Kate and her Nana’s middle name.

She is in room air with no breathing support as her lungs developed just enough with moms two Beta shots in the days leading up to emergent delivery

She does have a pic line (to heart) and is receiving her nutrition through that, as well as went most of her hrs the first day without spells, but began to do so later in the day and started caffeine doses today.

Over all after a scary cord compression battle, the pitocin was turned off and three hours were prolonged due to too many changes at once stressing out baby. When pitocin was turned back on, mom was in about an hour of active labor and knowing the cord was likely wrapping around Ayla, she pushed her out in two pushes and beat her time of 1.5 hrs of labor with Evie to 1.25 hr of active labor with Ayla.

Kate is still being monitored for kidney, cardiovascular, vascular damage, and severe anemia, but made it out of delivery without worst case scenario occurring, and is very slowly recovering. Shes borderline for possibly needing 1-2 more units of blood transfusion, but will get labs twice a week to monitor and reevaluate those levels.
She’s pretty weak and very tired but focused on nothing other than baby (those who know her know she wont put herself first)… but taking her time to get back on her feet and praying she can get a good night of sleep finally tonight now that she is out of the mag phase, and hopefully able to rest and recover more. Going to keep pushing her to relax in the NICU and prompt focusing on her recovery a bit as well. Baby Ayla has a wonderful army looking after her and monitoring her health and development, so mom has been reminded to focus on her healing of herself too.

Long journey ahead, and some very sad and eager kids back home, but we will overcome it all and do our best to find balance in the distance and division of our time.

Thank you to our army joining hands with us through all of this whether emotional, mental, physical, fitting our responsibilities into your schedules, or just saying a prayer. We love and appreciate everyone, every text, every call. If we are slow to respond we apologize. Just know we do appreciate anything said and done and we will always do our best to get back to everyone as soon as possible!

Until the next update…
-Jake

A turn of events that bring a little heavier news. The Tomanka fam… Together for Tomanka needs your support for Supporting Tomankas Two Tiny Fighters

03/07/2026

Saturday March 7- morning update

We are asking for all prayers and support in wrapping your arms around the Tomanka family today.
Pray for relief of any anxieties the kids may have while back home today especially Evie and karsen who have a little more understanding as to what is happening, and feel their emotions deeply. Not being able to be with mom has made them worry despite Jake and Kate’s effort to inform love and support them as much as possible.

In addition to love, prayers, and support, it is our role in this journey to aggressively alleviate any financial burdens from costs while in Iowa city, to missed work, travel expenses, hotel costs although discounted those add up over time while waiting for a suit big enough to hold their family at RMD house (which they’re on the waiting list for), food beyond the daily $12 voucher as we know it can cost beyond that per day to eat, and all other aspects of monetary support so they can be blessed with one less thing to stress about. $1 from numerous sources add up so quickly and that is all we ask!!

From Jake’s post this morning-

Today is the day
Kate’s induction will begin this afternoon with a high risk delivery. All babies have been natural birth and she is determined to succeed at keeping it that way.

Last nights update with more findings of how her body was / is being affected can be found in this shared post from the page you can follow for more information and updates going forward.

All prayers welcomed today for the strength and condition of a healthy delivery, recovery, and the health of baby. I could use some prayers of strength as watching her go through this even worse this time than with Liam not only here while hospitalized but before being admitted for the last 6-8 weeks, as she continued to decline and try so hard to push through at home has been hard to watch.
-Jake

A turn of events that bring a little heavier news. The Tomanka fam… Together for Tomanka needs your support for Supporting Tomankas Two Tiny Fighters

03/06/2026

3/6/26 update- last updated version 8:15pm

With just four donors so far— our group of friends for the Tomanka’s are asking the community, family, and friends to help us rally together in support for this family and their beautiful kids. We would like them to come out of tomorrow with the surprise and relief the monetary stressor that comes with the severity and length of time this season will take up in their life. Even if it is only $1 per person who sees this post—
Please consider to contribute in support and wrap around their family together.

Evening added update:
Bruising and swelling were found today behind her eyes showing bruising, inflammation, and retinal hemorrhage evidence due to the length of time her vascular system has been effected with increased pressure to the head and hypertension. Another piece to the puzzle of the risk of stroke or seizures as the next step of decline. Had she been sent home likely this would have gotten worse quickly.

On the spectrum of preeclampsia, the second step before stroke and seizures is development of HELLP which is essentially pre-e with severe features. After the pregnancy she will need to follow up with her cardiology, kidney/liver health, vascular specialist, and now ensuring that her eyes heal as this can cause long term damage to vision.

Afternoon 3/6–
Induction is set for tomorrow
Kate’s neurological effects continue to worsen and they were cleared of any other cause outside of pregnancy by an MRI yesterday. No medications are correcting the head pressure or vision changes, and the vision changes continueTomanka’s Two Tiny Fightersisk of more critical outcomes especially during delivery of seizures and stroke.

Baby is measuring small at the 19th percentile in comparison to Liam lions story who turns one this upcoming Wednesday.

Complete tubal removal will take place at the time of delivery with magnesium given at the start of induction, 24 hrs of magnesium, nothing to eat from the start of induction until exactly 24 hrs after the time baby is born, blood transfusion likely due to critically low hemoglobin levels and she will be very unwell for about two days after delivery.

She will be separated from baby for a minimum of 24 hrs, and depending on her condition could possibly be longer. She will then be kept for another 24 hr minimum able to be wheeled to the NICU bay baby is in, but still impatient until healthy enough to be discharged.

At that time, their NICU stay down here until baby is strong enough to come home will begin.

Please, prayers for a safe delivery and the health of both baby and Kate. Her goal was to push through this complicated pregnancy until 35 weeks and she’s just a week and a half short of that target delivering at 33.
JakeandKate Tomanka
https://www.gofundme.com/f/supporting-tomankas-two-tiny-fighters?attribution_id=sl:6f31f4c5-bdc9-4624-9b2c-20726cb2fd84&lang=en_US&ts=1772291882&utm_campaign=man_sharesheet_dash&utm_content=amp17_control-amp20_control&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=copy_link&fbclid=IwRlRTSAQX-0RleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEeaLFYO_hHWkQCAFvEZEyYDY809cg00MN9PkZY6iBL3koaHZ54Zd-wmL6tjf0_aem_HWiLnmCbT6RWS7AniCusbg

A turn of events that bring a little heavier news. The Tomanka fam… Together for Tomanka needs your support for Supporting Tomankas Two Tiny Fighters

03/06/2026

Just asking for our friends and families help us share and spread this post. You can’t share off private groups but you can share off of our personal page - the pinned post on our profile or through the page (not group) created by our friends—this page
I would deeply appreciate it.
Induction is for sure set for tomorrow.
Update 3/6
—
Tomanka’s Two Tiny Fighters

https://www.gofundme.com/f/supporting-tomankas-two-tiny-fighters?attribution_id=sl:6f31f4c5-bdc9-4624-9b2c-20726cb2fd84&lang=en_US&ts=1772291882&utm_campaign=man_sharesheet_dash&utm_content=amp17_control-amp20_control&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=copy_link&fbclid=IwRlRTSAQX8eRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEeXdhQuPvKzq-Mb6r-GvoCdVqB2lL00Gw91kq97cSlOmyLNpBiE40VyYNsf8o_aem_jZ8FUM7GzDbgG11yAsmjPw

A turn of events that bring a little heavier news. The Tomanka fam… Together for Tomanka needs your support for Supporting Tomankas Two Tiny Fighters

03/05/2026

UPDATE PLEASE PLEASE SHARE—
Kate was admitted today to the U of I
She has preeclampsia with severe features and severe anemia.

Last week she had two blood transfusions and has held her two units given to her but is still low. Changes in her vision are occurring and is presenting with migraines which cause higher concern of seizures and stroke risk.

She was given her first of two beta steroid shots to develop the babies lungs and was taken to MRI to rule out any other abnormalities in brain. Pain medications don’t alleviate the migraines which were the first step as routine to relieve headaches and were the second attempt to correct them.

She just turned 33 weeks with baby measuring in 19th percentile. Please share and help to wrap all of the love and support around Kate, Jake, and their 3 kids as the coming days are looking towards delivery most likely in the next 48 hrs.

A turn of events that bring a little heavier news. The Tomanka fam… Together for Tomanka needs your support for Supporting Tomankas Two Tiny Fighters

02/28/2026

Update of unexpected turns, please read and share far and wide. We need the community to come together now more than ever in this support initiative.

Good Morning,
This support was created 11 days ago, and while there are not any donations, we need your help to share this far and wide, as support is needed now more than ever. I thought it may be time for an update.

Kate's complication journey began in the second trimester, but became even more complicated with an official preeclampsia diagnosis at 31 weeks. Her blood pressures are all over the place, while reaching into the critically high numbers some days, and moderately high others. Her kidney and liver function numbers continue to worsen, where these complications were not present with her diagnosis with baby Liam.

Her hemoglobin levels dropped to a 6 last week which resulted in two hospital visits and two blood transfusions. The headaches and floaters she experienced with Liam that resulted in emergent delivery are part of this story as well, but have been able to be managed enough to not require immediate delivery. Preeclampsia is a spectrum. First is the diagnosis of pre-e, then it is the severe feature tier which is accompanied by the goal of reaching 34 weeks for delivery, and the tier that is of most concern is the tier after severe features when a stroke or seizure occurs. It is of course their largest focus to keep her from that last tier and usually the reason for the decision to quickly deliver regardless of how far along the pregnancy is.

Right now she has experienced two hospitalizations in the last week. She was stabilized in both of those enough to be on bed rest and out of work 6 weeks earlier than the first goal of 37 week induction due to the history of pre-e with Liam.

They don't typically treat with bed rest anymore due to the risk of blood clots and other complications, especially with the vascular concerns that are all the way from hip to ankle in her left leg, but in order to attempt to reach that 34 week mark, it is a last ditch effort to keep this baby in for at least one more week.

Early delivery will results in another NICU stay, magnesium delivery away from baby for at least 24 hours, and a heavy hearted time for their family away from the kiddos.

Although bed ridden, their family is doing their best this weekend to make it to Kate's first goal of being home for big brother Karsen's 12th birthday on Monday. We are just also one week away from Liam's first birthday, and Jake's birthday that is special and shared from the 32 week delivery last year unexpectedly. Just a week ago they said their see you laters to her dad who just departed to Florida for his new adventure in the warm sun where him and Dawn are building a sunny new chapter.

Please at the very least pray for their family through this time. There have been some very scary moments in the last week, and while the story isn't over, their family can use any uplift and love possible.

In addition to the love and support, monetarily things have already began to be heavy with many back and forth visits, hospitalizations, travel, time out of work, and all expenses that are accompanied by a time like this.

Please consider supporting monetarily through either this go fund me page, or their families venmo that goes directly to them.

The baby list link below also contains a giving button that allows you to give straight to them through venmo, outside of go fund me, but doesn't require you to have a venmo account!
https://my.babylist.com/katie-powers

Please please share far and wide, and join us in support the second of two tiny fighters. We deeply deeply appreciate it!!

https://gofund.me/32db6b181

02/18/2026

Tomanka family turn of events

https://gofund.me/fad9649fam