A Heart For a Child is a Valentine's Day Miracle

Angie Sullivan said, “When my doctor walked in she looked at me and she said, ‘There's something wrong with your baby's heart.’"

Angie Sullivan was five months pregnant with her third daughter when a routine sonogram revealed baby Blair had hypoplastic ‘left’ heart syndrome, a rare birth defect that causes the left side of the heart to be severely underdeveloped. She called her husband, Jordan, with the news.

Jordan said, “My heart sank. I didn't like my wife crying, I didn't like the possibility of what could come from this. I just had hurt in my heart.”

“Fear, disappointment, shock, I was in disbelief,” said Angie. “You never want it to be you, you never want it to be your kid.”

Baby Blair would require several corrective surgeries at birth to survive. Angie and Jordan reached out to family and friends to pray and established a Facebook page called, “Beats for Baby Blair.”

Angie explained, “Without the community support, I don't know what we would have done, and I don't know if we would have had the strength to get through it without them and without their prayer.” 

They welcomed Blair into the world with a mix of hope and fear. 

Jordan said, “I was soaking it all in. Seeing all of her fingers and toes, to see what she actually looks like in person, it was, it was very exciting.”

Angie said, “It, it was a relief to see her uh, you know, take a breath and-and feel her on me for a moment. But it was kinda scary to see her whisked away, you know, so quickly.” 

Blair underwent open-heart-surgery at 8-days-old. It was then that doctors made a devastating discovery. Pulmonary Stenosis had disabled the healthy side of her heart, and her only chance of survival was a heart transplant. 

“It crushed my heart,” said Angie. “It's hard to keep your faith in a time like that, but there's not really another option.”

Jordan said, “We kept praying, because it's the only thing I felt like I could do to help her.  Uh, I wasn't able to, you know, put a Band-Aid on a skinned knee. It wasn't something I could physically help her overcome. The only thing I could do to help Blair was to pray for her.”

Once again, Angie and Jordan reached out to others to pray, including Blair’s 13,000 Facebook followers. Because of Blair’s special circumstances, their prayers were tempered with humility. 

Angie explained, “You realize that for her to get a new heart it means that another baby dies. You don't want to pray for that. And so, we would just pray that His will be done and that, you know, whatever that be, we would be prepared for it.

Because of infections and other complications, Blair was taken off the transplant list multiple times over the next several months. But then on Valentine’s Day, the same day Blair was put back on the list, Angie and Jordan received a phone call.

Jordan said, “The lady on the phone says, ‘We've accepted a heart for Blair.’ And uh we were like, ‘Say it again?  What?’  And she's like, ‘We've, we've accepted a heart for Blair.’"

With a big smile, Angie said, “I was actually in disbelief.  I actually had made our transplant coordinator repeat herself, because I didn't believe her.”

Jordan added, “Both of us sank in our chairs with joy, hugged each other and cried. It was a very special Valentine's Day, and I told my wife that night before we'd go to bed, I was like, ‘This is a, this is a Valentine's Day I'll never be able to uh beat.’ There's no flowers, no gifts would uh top, giving our daughter a heart.”

The next day, Blair underwent a successful transplant surgery. After seven months in the hospital, she was finally released and welcomed home by a community parade. 

Angie said, “It was amazing. Finally bring her home. And it felt, it felt right. It felt like this is where she needs to be.”

“She's so upbeat, such a happy baby, uh rolling around, sitting up, playing with all of her toys,” said Jordan. “She just always has a smile. Uh, she's just a happy, happy baby.”  

Blair has some catching up to do, but is expected to be on track developmentally by age 4. And now, each Valentine’s Day, her parents are reminded of the love of God and the prayers of the faithful as they celebrate the day their little girl was given a brand-new heart.     

Jordan said, “Angie and I both believe if, if it weren't for the prayers of us, our family and this, our community, uh and all the people that followed us all over the world, we wouldn’t have Blair home today.”

Angie said, “This is her purpose, is to share her story and to give other people hope and to give other people strength and to give other people faith. You definitely never give up faith and you just, you pray.  When there's nothing else to do, you pray.”