What if every milestone your child was supposed to reach came with countless curve balls? For Alexis Kaplan, motherhood quickly turned into a journey of advocacy, strength, and unwavering love as she navigated her daughter Gabby’s complex and rare health conditions....
Episode 20 | Alex’s Story – A daughter born with congenital heart defects and heterotaxy
Podcast Show Notes
At Alex’s 20-week ultrasound appointment, she and her husband learned that their daughter, Lucy, had heterotaxy and congenital heart defects. From that moment, their lives changed and they became advocates and fighters for their spunky daughter who is now one year old.
In this episode, Alex talks about Lucy’s birth, surgeries, hospitalizations and ER visits. She talks about how their cardiologist became one of their biggest champions and what a difference the congenital heart defect online community has made for them.
Alex recommends the poem Welcome to Holland and the Mended Hearts organization for parents going through similar situations. If you’d like to connect personally with Alex, you can do so on Instagram or Facebook.
Alex would like to share Lucy’s diagnoses:
Heterotaxy: right sided stomach, midline liver and gallbladder, mirror lungs, asplenia.
Congenital heart defects: complex Single ventricle with: complete unbalanced AV canal defect, hypoplastic left heart, double outlet right ventricle, total anamoulous pulmonary venous connection, pulmonary atresia, and bilateral superior vena cava.
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