When Christine Fosher’s infant son, Brodey, was in critical condition after his birth in March, the last thing she wanted to do was leave his side.

Brodey experienced complications when his lungs collapsed five times and required a chest tube. All the while, Fosher and her husband, Kevin Rainbolt, were suffering stress as new parents worried about their son’s health and his care at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

“There were some issues in getting him proper care, so our doctor gave us options to look at Overland Park Regional Hospital, Children’s Mercy and KU Med,” she said. “We had talked about the challenges of moving him and what it would mean for us as first-time parents and living in Lawrence.”

The couple chose to stay at LMH, and their son recovered.

“We were pretty happy that things worked out here in Lawrence,” Fosher said.

The LMH nursery is undergoing a major renovation, and the hospital is trying to raise money for specialized equipment that will lessen the need for newborns to be transferred to other hospitals.

An upcoming biennial benefit, the 2008 Hearts of Gold Ball, will raise funds for equipment for the hospital’s special-care unit of the nursery. This year’s ball, on April 26, will honor Tensie Oldfather, a Lawrence philanthropist who died Oct. 2, 2007. The nursery will be named “Tensie’s Nursery.”

The fundraising goal for this year’s ball, themed “Magical Moments: Celebrating the Magical Moments that Life Brings,” is at least $100,000 to help the nursery, said Heather Ackerly, corporations manager for the hospital’s foundation and endowment association.

Needed equipment includes infant warmers for each of the eight labor rooms, four updated neonatal intensive care warmers for the special nursery and four cardio respiratory monitors.

In addition, an OBTV Fetal Monitoring System, which was updated and installed in the nursery in March, is included in about 20 percent of the total fundraising costs.

Denise Martinek, director of maternal child services, said the system allows nurses and doctors to monitor babies anywhere in the nursery through the Web-based application.

The Hearts of Gold Ball was created in 1998 and has raised money for various areas of the hospital, including an emergency room expansion and construction of the Bob Billings Cardiac Evaluation Center.

This year’s ball is expected to bring between 630 and 650 people, Ackerly said.