“When I was pregnant with Noah, it was overall a smooth pregnancy. There were no signs of complications, and we were simply excited to welcome baby number two. The morning after he was born though, we were presented with news we did not expect in any capacity. The hospital pediatrician came in after his initial check-up of Noah and mentioned he noticed some subtle signs common in babies with Trisomy 21. He recommended we submit testing to see if Noah had down syndrome and also suggested we take a closer look at his heart since heart conditions are pretty common among individuals with down syndrome.

That’s when we learned Noah had a complete AV canal defect – and a few weeks later we received confirmation that he indeed had down syndrome. We were told he would need open-heart surgery within the first few months of life with the timing of surgery dependent on the severity of his symptoms and his weight. They wanted to make sure he was strong enough to have the surgery.

After working towards weight gain and monitoring his heart symptoms, he had his surgery just before turning four months old and spent about a week in the hospital. The surgery went well and thankfully there were no complications during or after the surgery. As of now, he still has a little bit of valve leakage, but nothing critical to where he has symptoms or needs medical intervention outside of routine cardiology appointments.

Around Noah’s one-year heart-aversary, I felt a strong call to write a story about pediatric heart surgery titled Healing Hearts with Doctor Bronto. I wanted to create a resource that could help other families and children facing similar medical journeys. It became a way to process our experience and offer support to others walking a similar path.”