Sellers Babies' Heart Defects

Hi everyone, my name is Cassie and I’m the little sister to an amazing mom, Alex. She is married to Derek, and they have two amazing kids (wyatt 3, and Claire 2) and another baby girl coming in late December. Her family is the definition of “when it rains it pours.” I could talk about every single broken down car, every hospital stay, and every house repair but I will try to sum it up as much as I can. Claire was born with two VSDs and coarctation of the aorta. A missed diagnosis they did not know about until they were home for 6 days and she became cold to the touch and turning blue. She was rushed to the hospital and her organs were failing. After getting intubated and put on life support they did testing to find the cause. That’s when they found the heart defects. They started with a less invasive procedure that was not successful. They had to resort to open heart surgery on a one week old baby. Which turned into multiple open heart surgeries over the first year of her life. She just celebrated her second birthday in the hospital after getting a virus she could not shake due to her underlying medical condition. The same week they got news that the baby on the way has the exact same, rare heart diagnosis as Claire. The doctors are stumped how it could happen to the same family again. We all are. Alex went and got a risk evaluation done before they tried for their third and there was a 4% risk of a heart defect leading the doctor to tell them it is worth trying again if they want more. They will have to go through it all over again and spend months postpartum in the hospital. Meanwhile on the home front their AC discretely leaked ruining half their house including their spare bath and the spare room that will soon be the new baby’s room. They haven’t financially recovered from the first round and now they will have another stack of bills flooding their mailbox soon. We appreciate taking the time to read their story, sharing, and donating.