Abbey is the mother of sick newborn Kayla in the episode Unplanned Parenthood. She already had an adult daughter, Justine. She was portrayed by actress Jennifer Grey.
Abbey was in her late 40s when she decided to have her second child. Her pregnancy was uneventful and her labor, although lengthy, was unremarkable. However, when Kayla was born, she was severely hypoxic and was taken to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. When there appeared to be no reason for Kayla's breathing problems, Kayla was transferred to House for diagnosis.
Kayla needed a blood transfusion and as Abbey was a blood-type match, she donated blood. Kayla improved, but soon took a turn for the worse, but once again improved when she received Abbey's blood. When Chris Taub tried giving his blood and it had no positive effect, they determined that something in Abbey's blood was treating Kayla.
They soon determined Kayla had a melanoma on her liver and the only way she could have got it was from Abbey. A physical examination of Abbey showed that she had a melanoma under one of her fingernails. However, Abbey had no symptoms of cancer despite the fact the melanoma was mature enough to mestastisized. The team determined Abbey also had something fighting her cancer.
A thorough examination also showed that Abbey had oat cell lung cancer. The antibodies that attacked the lung cancer also were attacking the melanoma in both Kayla and Abbey. However, the oat cell cancer needed immediate treatment.
They presented the treatment options to Abbey, but she opted to delay treatment so she could use her own antibodies to treat Kayla. Unfortunately, Abbey developed a complication of her cancer, a blood clot, that caused a pulmonary embolism that resulted in her death. However, her blood was drained and the antibodies were removed from it, which allowed Kayla to make a full recovery.