Our little peanut Za’Nae has been through a lot with only being 7 weeks old. May 23^rd, 2022, I went to a checkup because I had passed out the weekend before and we had planned not to find out the gender, but something told me to go ahead find out the gender that day. When I was getting my ultrasound, they kept looking for several minutes … After that we got scheduled to go to Asheville on June 7^th, 2022, for another ultrasound to see if it was just the equipment at my obgyn that I was attending or something was seriously wrong; once we started the ultrasound they told me she had a severe heart problem and we would need to get in touch with Charlotte to schedule an appointment. We went to Charlotte, met with several doctors, nurses, surgeons and many more … we talked about her diagnosis, which was Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome; we talked about what her heart looked like – they showed me a diagram of a normal heart and a heart with this diagnosis; we learned the surgeries she would need and how old she would be when the time came for surgery. I made it to every appointment traveling an hour and a half every week to make sure she was still doing good; our last two appointments I was told she had some leakage in one of her valves, but they couldn’t do anything about that. We scheduled my c-section for September 12, 2022 … I ended up drinking orange juice that morning so we had to change the date to September 14, 2022. On that Wednesday at 11:39 a.m. Za’Nae came into the world breathing on her own with her eyes wide open. After recovery a doctor came in and told me and my family that she only had 5% chance of coming home. She was a week old when we were told by the nurses in Charlotte there was nothing they could do for her so we got moved to Duke University Hospital in Durham. She was placed on the ventilator because she was breathing too fast. She was then put on paralyzing and sedation medication to keep her calm so she wouldn’t over work her heart. Then at two weeks old on September 28^th, 2022, she had a big open heart surgery where she got a ventricular assist device (vad) put in to help her heart pump while she waits for a heart so she can get a heart transplant.

The Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) helps children and young adults who need a life-saving transplant by providing fundraising assistance and family support. COTA is the nation’s only fundraising organization solely dedicated to raising life-saving dollars in honor of transplant-needy children and young adults. 100% of each contribution made to COTA in honor of our patients helps meet transplant-related expenses. COTA’s services are free to our families, and gifts to COTA are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.