Bob and I were the happiest people when our Rebecca Lyn came into this world on June 26, 1976!  Within hours of her birth, we found out she had a significant heart murmer.  The pediatrician was concerned, but not overly so, leading us to believe she would be okay.

The truth was that our dear and beautiful Becky had a congenital heart defect which was unfixable in her lifetime.  She had a common atrium, common ventricle, (two chambered heart), and pulmonary stenosis, which meant she did not have enough oxygen to sustain life.  No heart transplants were yet performed on children at that time. She had a Patent Ductus Murmer which allowed blue blood to mix with oxygenated blood but that was not sustainable.  

A Blalock-Taussig shunt was performed when she was six weeks old to help prolong her life.  At the most, we knew she only had about three years tops.  At sixteen months, she suddenly passed right before our eyes at home one night after suffereing a seizure from low oxygen levels.  

My mission now with the Childrens Heart foundation, is to raise funds for the most promising research for congenital heart defects.  The success of raising dollars for this effort has resulted in so many children receiving heart transplants plus much more to give them a chance of a full life. Research continues to not only find ways to repair or fix CHDs, but also to gain more insight to why they happen at all.

Please consider helping with a donation to further this research and help other families get through the difficulty of having a child with a congenital heart defect.

Thank you for reading about our story.

Lori Ortbals, Founder of Childrens Heart Foundation - Missouri Chapter