Althought I was promised through my entire pregancy that a c-setion would not have to happen . But It did not matter I had my beautiful little Princess.

After being at St Lukes Hospital for 15 hours Mackenzie was taken to Childrens Mercy Hospital and went to the NICU. She was taken care of on that floor for 2 weeks as they checked her out to find out everything that was wrong with her heart.

What they came to was that she had a complete av canal with common atrium, common av valve, double outlet right ventricle, mild aortic valve regurgaitation, mild pulmonary valve regurgitation,mild av valve regurgitation, persistant left superior vena cava, infrahepatic interruption ov ivc and situs inversus.

The short term for all of it is A Complex Heart Defect.

Her Cardiology doctor said that they had never seen anything like what she has before. After 2 weeks she got to go home but had to be on Oxygen because she only had an oxygen level of 75.

Mackenzie stayed on the oxygen for about    1  1/2 months and then was able to come off but her stats stayed at 70-74 but she did very well.

She went on with her life like any other child her age doing wonderful.

The doctors kept saying how they could not belive how well she was doing for all that was wrong with her she did not look sick at all.

Several times the doctors talked about doing her heart sugery but every time they put it off saying she is doing so well why mess with it.

When the time came that the doctors said that her sugery needed to be done I was so very sad she was doing fine but I understood that it had to happen.

So on June 29th 2005 we got up at 5:00A.M and headed to Childrens Mercy Hospital we had to be there at 6:00 A.M we had to see several different people before the sugery.

Around 7:15 A.M. I had to hand my baby girl to the sugery nurses give her a kiss and tell her bye this was the hardest thing in the world to do and little did I know that this was the last time I would ever get to see my baby girl awake I cried so hard and Mackenzie was looking at me like mommy what are you doing why are you giving me to this lady that I don't know and telling me bye.

A nurse came out ever 30 to 45 minutes during the sugery to up date us and every time she came out we got a good report so we were very happy. The hours went by with good reports and then they came in and told us that they had hit a bump in the road My heart about stopped! they had gotten done with the sugery and closed up her chest and all of her levels droped almost bottomed out so they opened her chest back up and said everything should be ok we will cover her chest and go ahead and take her to the PICU and allow time for the swelling to go down and them close her chest when that time comes everything should be ok.

So we waited!

But it just seemed like nothing went right she had to go on dialyses on July 2nd because her kidneys would not work after about 1 day or so it finally seemed like something was going our way and she was finally going pee.

On July 3rd she was trying to respond a little althought she never really woke up she did try to squeeze my hand a little when I was talking to her and she batted her eyes and wiggled her toes she also closed her mouth all the way at one ponit. I personaly think this was her way of trying to communicate with me this may have been her telling me good bye and when she moved her lips maybe she was trying to give me a kiss.

On July 4th the doctor said that the sewlling was down enough to close her chest so at about 6:45 A.M on the 4th they closed her chest and and we were so happy they had started to ween her off the ventilator and let her try to wake up. But that never happen about 8:45 p.m. on the 4th of July I was in her room visiting with her telling her to hurry and wake up so that I could hold her and we could watch barney all the numbers on her moniter went to zero and I heard the nurse say she has no pulse I need help!

I just about lost it! My baby was dying and I could not do anything to help her I was trying to watch what the doctors were doing but when I saw them on top of her giving her chest compressions I had to leave. The doctors and nurses worked on her for 2 hours trying to bring her back finally after 2 hours they said that the only thing left to do was to open her back up and put her on ecmo which was life support I told them to do what ever they had to do to save my baby girls life. So they did. And then it was going to be a 72 hour waiting game. The longest 72 hours of my life.

The doctors asked to talk to us on July 7th at 8:30 A.M. and gave us the worst news in the entire world they told us that our baby girl was gone that the ecmo was not working that when she coded on the 4th her heart never came back. All I could do was scream and cry I could not believe my baby girl was gone. This sugery was just suppose help her she was suppose be ok and only be in the hospital for 2 weeks and then go home.

After we got that news we went in to the room so we could hold our baby for the very last time and all I did was cry and so no why and tell Mackenzie that I was sorry that this had happend to her. I was holding her when they turned off the machine and my beautiful little Princess Mackenzie died in my arms. I held her for a long time after that I could not put her down I did not want to let her go.

It has now been over 3 years since Our baby girl left us and We miss her so very much.

MACKENZIE WE LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU WITH ALL OUR HEARTS! Love Mommy & Daddy