For middle school sweethearts, Gina and Matt Berrios, parenting is very different. They spend their days and nights hoping and praying for a miracle. They find strength in the little things. And as they watch their son, Maxwell, fight for his life, they are reminded that it’s those little things that make life worth living.
Like most expectant parents, Marie and Steven Hartley were excited about welcoming their child into the world. Born at 8 pounds, 5 ounces, their daughter, Caitlin, appeared the adorable epitome of health, but doctors would soon learn that this beautiful bundle of joy had a rare but serious heart condition.
When Kelly McPherson was 17 weeks pregnant, she had a fever and realized that something might be wrong with the baby. An ultrasound revealed her fears were right. Her unborn baby had swelling around the heart, lungs and abdominal cavity because of excessive fluid deposition. Doctors later said it was because of a rare complication from common human parvovirus.
When Ashley Cardenas was 16 weeks pregnant, doctors asked her to make the most difficult decision of her life. Her baby was suffering from a rare heart condition that mostly turns fatal and Ashley was given a choice to terminate the pregnancy or continue on with it. Ashley chose the latter and says that the best decision she could have made to save her child.
When Albert Tansey’s heart started to fail, doctors looked outside the box to save the little boy’s life with a procedure that had only ever been performed on adults.
Baby Rheya’s chances of survival appeared to be dim after doctors found had three rare heart defects shortly after she was born. Thankfully, doctors were able to perform a keyhole surgery that bought them time for a bigger surgery down the road.
When Riley’s parents refused to abort him at 21 weeks of pregnancy, they knew that their boy was not going to have the same path as other children. Their baby was probably the only child in the world with 6 major heart defects and doctors said that he might not survive. But the little fighter proved the doctors wrong by making a staggering recovery in spite of all his heart defects.
Baby Toby was just 22 hours old when he was whisked into the operation theatre for a heart surgery. Determined to give her unborn child a chance, his mother had earlier refused to terminate the pregnancy when doctors told her that he had a life-threatening heart condition.
Cui Chenxi was a child heartlessly abandoned by three different families and left on the streets before he was finally picked by a loving family in China. The new adoptive parents though soon discovered that the baby boy suffered from a congenital heart condition and instead of disowning him, they spend all their life’s savings to save the baby.
Kylee Faith Jones was born with a congenital heart condition where her heart was in the right side of the body instead of the left and needed a pacemaker to survive just three days after she was born. But thanks to a heart transplant the baby now five months old is healthy and recovering well.
Darren and Tracey Horsley had just become parents when 10 minutes after their baby boy was born the doctors rushed him out of the delivery room. Baby Xavier Lucas had stopped breathing and it was found that he had a rare heart condition while in the womb, which no one was aware of.
When Lucy Elkins was just 20 weeks pregnant it was revealed that her baby had a heart problem and might not survive. But by becoming the youngest recipient of a pacemaker, her son King proved the predictions wrong and showed he was willing to fight each day to grow stronger.
Baby Audrey MacIvor appeared to be a healthy baby until tests revealed something was not right with her heart. The baby needed a heart transplant immediately and seeing her struggle to survive each day, doctors took the radical decision of buying time for her by giving a Berlin heart.
