Khloe Heart Fund

Well… these past 3 months have been very stressful… I should say the past 10 months or so, since we found out at our anatomy scan that our precious baby girl #2 has a heart defect.  At 20 weeks, Khloe was diagnosed with an Atrioventricular Canal Defect (AVSD). A what? That’s all I heard when the Perinatal doctor tried to explain her worries. A large hole in the heart that is linked to Down Syndrome. Huh? She explained we would need to get further testing done to confirm Downs and needed to hurry as we were nearing the legal cutoff for pregnancy termination. WAIT! WHAT?! Here I was, just an hour or so earlier, super ecstatic about finding out who I was carrying inside of me.  We were hoping for a boy. Kris REALLY wanted a boy. Finding out she was a girl was the only shocker I was expecting… not this.  Ms. HurrySoYouCanTerminate scheduled a follow up appointment with a Pediatric Cardiologist to confirm Khloe’s heart defect.

Hearing she had an AVSD was hard. Being told this was highly associated with Downs children was harder. Confirming she’d need heart surgery was just way too much. I had so many questions and the cardiologist was more than happy to answer them, she also drew a diagram of Khloe’s heart vs a normal heart…



She explained there was a 1 in 3 chance she’d have Downs but that surgery would be needed around the 4th month of life to close her balanced AV Canal Defect. We went ahead and did Harmony testing and after a week of melt downs and worries the result came back that she did not have Downs, however she still had this large hole in her heart.

I knew from that moment on this would be tough but we would not give up on her.  Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has a 99.0% recovery rate and they have been nothing short of amazing so far in our journey.  I have been meaning to blog about her, about this, about us… writing is helping me get through this but I have also been contacted by expecting mothers who are beginning this journey.  So I will share Khloe’s story.