The Beginning

        Josh hadn't been home from his second Deployment very long when we found out we were expecting a baby. It was fourth of July weekend when I just had a feeling and took a pregnancy test. I remember wanting to do or say something cute to tell him, but I was too excited to wait. I popped my head out of the bathroom door and grinning from ear to ear told him the news. We were so excited, it was such a happy time for our little family.
        We waited until our first ultrasound to tell the kids, we wanted to be sure everything was going well with the pregnancy and see the baby on the screen before we let them in on our news. We'd already announced it to our friends and family. Seeing the tiny bean of a baby on the screen and hearing the heartbeat was so exciting. We'd never had a first trimester ultrasound before. The doctor told us our dates looked perfect and that the baby looked healthy and growing great. Our due date was March 16th, 2015.
           I wanted the kids to be there with us when we found out girl or boy, so we went to Round Rock and had a special ultrasound done at 15 weeks. It was that day that we found out we would be having another sweet girl. Sophia was beaming with happiness at the news. I had been so sure that it was a little boy, but I was excited at the idea of another sweet girl to dress up and love on. Josh and I played around with name ideas on the hour plus drive home and quickly came to the conclusion that her name would be Kinley.
          Everything seemed so wonderfully perfect. We had so many plans for our newest addition already, so much love for this sweet baby we'd be meeting one day soon.
       
           At 20 weeks we went in for our Anatomy scan. We already knew it was a girl, so we were just expecting to see her sweet little self on the ultrasound screen and then be on our way, just like we'd done with Lincoln and Sophia at the same gestation. This time it didn't end in smiles and laughs though.
          The tech measured our baby, she told us it was indeed a sweet girl, and then she went about doing her measurements and checks. Her face got very serious as she took pictures of Kinley's heart. She had me turn on my side, then on my other side, she had me move all sorts of ways trying to get all the pictures she needed. I felt a little nervous at this point, but babies can be stubborn and not be in the right position, so I tried not to worry.
            The tech smiled at us and said she'd just go get the doctor, that she had a lot better luck getting the pictures of babies that were in harder positions.
            The female doctor came in, I still can't remember her name, I just remember she had very bad bedside manor. She looked and looked, she had me move all sorts of ways as well, and then she started talking...
           "Have you heard of the snowboarder named Shaun White?" She asked. I shook my head no, and she continued, "Your baby looks like she may have a heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot, Shaun White also had that as a child, and it was corrected with surgery, and he's gone on to do everything you and I could do. Your baby will need open heart surgery very quickly after birth."
          I was already crying. How could this be? How had we not seen anything wrong before? Did I do something to cause this? Will my baby be in a lot of pain? Open heart surgery sounds terrifying!
          "I can't seem to get all the angles of the heart that I'd like, so it's possible her heart could be okay and I'm just not seeing it right, but I don't think that's the case. I'll have you come back in 2 more weeks and we will look again."

         We left shocked and scared. We waited the two longest weeks ever. I googled Shaun White and Congenital Heart Defects and my dread grew. Everyone told me not to worry, that it was probably a mistake, that everything would be okay... but I felt this immense dread building inside, it was as if I knew in my heart and soul that things were not right and my baby would need me to prepare for any outcome.

         Two weeks later, after a tearful ultrasound, we got the news. Kinley did indeed have something wrong with her heart. It most likely wasn't the TOF they had originally thought, but instead Transposition of the Great Arteries, and Coarctation of the Aorta, and a Ventricular Septal Defect. This sweet girl, our tiny baby, had a heart that just didn't form the way that it should have. It could happen to anyone the told me, it's like being struck by lightening they said, it happens to 1 in 100 babies....but it wasn't just happening to anyone, it had happened to us.
      
         I cried, the fear engulfed me. I'd had two healthy babies before, what did I know about having a baby that would need heart surgery at birth and need care for her heart her entire life? What had I done to cause this? How would I tell my sweet baby that her heart was broken?
       We were referred to a heart specialist and sent on our way.

         Over the next few months we saw the specialist in Texas, he told us that the first Doctors had been wrong and that our baby would not need surgery. That she only had a small hole in her heart and that it would likely close on it's own in the first few weeks of her life. We were thrilled and so very relieved. But deep down I still had this nagging feeling that something was wrong.

       We were moving to New York, and our Texas doctor strongly still believed that Kinley had TGA. He advised me to get a second opinion as soon as we got to New York. I agreed with him, and he put in the orders for us.

       I will be forever thankful to that doctor. The heart doctor in New York, Dr. Smith, immediately recognized the TGA and other heart defects the first doctors had seen. He told me Kinley would need the surgery within the first days of her birth, and that he had high hopes for her. He was confident that they would be able to correct the problems and that she would be okay.

         Obviously that's not how things worked out for us, but I am grateful for the hope he allowed me to begin feeling, it gave me the strength to bond even more tightly with my girl in those last few months of pregnancy.

         It was the news I needed to begin a plan for Kinley and our fight for her to live,

This was only the beginning of our story.