During the 2025 Colorado Rockies home opener, a local Rockies ball player was still looking to make his way back to the team. At the beginning of the season, his focus was on an individual who transcends baseball — his daughter.
Pitcher Lucas Gilbreath played at Legacy High School in Broomfield prior to his professional years. As the reliever begins his journey back to the majors, he’s finding inspiration from his infant daughter, who recently overcame a serious health issue.
“I call her Lainey bug,” Gilbreath told CBS Colorado.
“She’s just like the perfect baby. Just such a happy baby,” wife and mother Kelsey Gilbreath told CBS Colorado.
Baby Lainey’s perfect smile arrived Aug. 28, 2024, to parents Lucas and Kelsey. But their joyous day was interrupted by a new reality.
“We delivered at Children’s Hospital because we knew she had a heart defect,” Gilbreath said. “So when she came out and like has her own team of doctors immediately surrounding her and making sure that she is stable and healthy, it’s scary to see all of that happen.”
Lainey has a heart defect called an interrupted aortic arch. It’s rare and seen in about 1% of pregnancies, where the aorta — which is the major blood vessel supplying blood to the body — is incomplete or interrupted. Kelsey found out about this during her 20-month anatomy scan.
“The ultrasound technician was just quiet, and I started to realize something wasn’t right,” Kelsey said. “And then another doctor came in to kind of help out her, and she was like, ‘We just can’t quite see the heart right.’”
Lainey stayed in the hospital for 25 days and needed two open heart surgeries. She had another surgery in November, when she received Renata Medical’s Minima Stent System, which was recently FDA approved. This system can be safer for children’s small arteries.
It was so successful that Lainey didn’t need another procedure
“Our biggest reward is seeing is when we see these babies growing up and running around and being normal children, and it’s fantastic to see the kiddos come around the hospital to see them,” said Dr. Henry Galen, professor of obstetrics and oncology.
“I think going through adversity as a couple and as a parent, I do truly think it makes it even more special,” Lucas said.
