Your donation will support The Children’s Heart Foundation, the only organization dedicated solely to funding research and advancements to prevent, diagnose and treat congenital heart defects. A congenital heart defect refers to when a baby is born with a heart that has structural flaws; it is actually the most common birth defect in the United States, affecting 1% of all babies born each year. Of that 1%, 0.0025% are born with a critical heart defect requiring immediate intervention to save their life.
The likelihood of a heart defect—especially a critical heart defect—may not seem all that significant. Until it’s your likelihood. Until it’s your diagnosis. Until it’s your baby born fighting for his or her life. It didn’t seem likely or significant to us. Until it was our likelihood. Our diagnosis. Until it was our baby born fighting for her life.
Our daughter Sophia was born with not one, but two critical heart defects. We knew nothing about heart defects or any type of birth defects for that matter, but finding out that our newborn baby would have to have her heart opened up at five days old was devastating. A newborn baby’s heart is comparable to the size of a walnut. The tools, the precision, and the expertise that’s required for pediatric heart surgery is well beyond comprehension—at least mine. But those tools, that precision and that expertise is what saved Sophia’s life. Not once, but again and again as she went on to have five surgeries on her little heart.
We faced complication after complication as we continued to discover more things about the way Sophia’s heart was built and while there are a whole lot of miracles and answered prayers woven into this story, we can’t overlook the tools, the precision and the expertise—only made possible by researchers and cardiologists who tirelessly advocate for more studies, more funding, more experiments. We can’t overlook the parents and the families whose stories had heartbreaking conclusions and yet, they still reached back for families like ours and championed advocacy efforts through fundraisers, awareness events, and through the sharing of their own stories.
This chapter of Sophia’s story has a happy ending. And now it’s our turn to reach back for the babies and their families who may face a similar diagnosis and fight for their happy ending. We’re so grateful you’ve chosen to come alongside us and advocate for this cause!