Tuesday, April 7, 2009

CHD Awareness

For those of you who don't know Dylan's story from the beginning, he was diagnosed with a Congenital Heart Defect at 20 weeks gestation. That was the first indication that we had a very special little boy in our lives. And Dylan's CHD was rare, called Hypoplastic Right Heart Syndrome. We did alot of research, and read up on all the information that we could muster up online. We had a great pediatric cardiologist already lined up, were going in for constant echocardiograms, met with a top-of-the-line cardiothoracic surgeon at the children's hospital, etc. We went through all the motions necessary for CHD babies (as much of the prep as we could do before birth anyway). So I feel a certain closeness to babies living with a CHD, simply because that's what we were preparing for with Dylan. The surgeries, the medicine, the "he'll never play football". Now while our story didn't quite go as we'd hoped or planned, the extraordinary part is that, in the end, Dylan's heart (defect and all) wasn't what failed his body.

I know that Dylan would've been a special CHD baby himself, and we never stopped having hope that his heart would get the fixin' it needed, function, and thrive. So when I read about other CHD babies, I have the same hope for them. Like Bentley, an adorable 7-month-old who was diagnosed with Tetralogy of Fallot at just 2 days old. She will need surgery in less than 2 months.

Prayers for Bentley

(Click on the picture above to read more about Bentley. Bentley's mommy is doing a giveaway on her blog to spread the word on CHD awareness, so head on over there.)

1 comment:

Teresa @ Grammy Girlfriend said...

So glad I found your blog. Hope you will stop by and see me..