At 8:01 p.m July 23. 2003 this amazing little HLHS baby came crashing into this world. He was blue when he was born and he was taken away immediately. I never seen his face, touched his hand, or held him in my arms. The first time I had seen him was several hours later as they wheeled him in his incubator to my bed side, I was able to see him an touch his hand for less than two minutes. I received a call at 2:00 in the morning letting me know that I should come down to see him, he had stopped breathing and to be put on the ventilator. When I walked into his room, I saw this little helpless angel laying there so sick. My heart was braking. I spent all of my waking hours at his bed side from that moment on. At 5 days old it was time for his first and toughest battle, his first open heart surgery (Norwood). I remember the surgeon coming in to explain everything. He told me that Christian's ventricle was so small and that he was not sure if he could even fix it and not and not to get my hopes up, but that he would do everything that he could for my sweet little boy, and then he asked me to sign the lines that put my child in his hands. For the first time ever, Christian was laid into my arms, with machines and all hooked up to him. For the first time he was at easy and not fighting and so as I. That was the best 5 minutes of my life that I had in such a long time. As they took him and laid him on the stretcher my world started to crumble. I had never been so scared in my life. Six and a half very long hours later they let me know he was out of surgery and that I would be able to see him in about an hour. When I walked in I hit the floor. My child looked dead, he was so swollen and his chest was still open. I could see every breath he took and his heart working away. The machines and wires were doubled. Christian worked very hard at getting better and getting home from that point. A little over a month later we made it home as a family. It did not last long. At 5 months Christian oxygen saturations went down to 56 and it was time for battle number 2 (Glenn). December 1st my baby was taken away from my arms again and put into the hands of his surgeon. Another long seven hour wait went by before I was able to see him again. They said everything went well and he was fine, but I knew something was not right. We left PCICU a little over a week after the surgery to go to the "floor", but our stay there was short lived. Christian has contracted RSV and was put in a oxygen hood back in the ICU. A week later we made it back to the floor and 2 days before Christmas we made it home. He had to be on oxygen and he was miserable, but he was alive. The next step was to get him to gain weight and be around 35 lbs. by the time he was three so that he could have his final planned open heart surgery (Fontan) completed. Years went by and we continued to struggle to put on weight. In December of 2008 the time had come to make a decision. Christian was 5 years old and still was so small and there was no hope that he would weigh the 35 lbs.. any time soon, so the question was do they risk taking him in and putting in a feeding tube and that surgery could kill him (because of his heat and pressures) or take him in and do the Fontan which could kill him (because he was so under weight). They decided to take their chances with fixing his little heart (Fontan) on February 11 2009. I thought that this would be our easiest fight yet, but it turned out to be our hardest. For me, I had 5 years to fall in love with this amazing little boy and I was so scared to loose him, for him, he was 5 years old. He was aware of everything going on. He could express his pain. They had to pull him from my arms because he was holding on so tight. As they walked into the O.R all I could hear was him screaming "Mommy". I felt so helpless in that very moment. When I got to see him after the surgery, he woke up and was fighting. He fought the nurses, the doctors, and the machines. He tried so hard to call for me over his breathing tube. There were 2 statements he said to me once the breathing tube was removed that I will never forget. 1st was "mommy" second was "you left me, and I missed you". From that moment I never left his side if he was awake and I rarely left his side while he was sleeping. Once we left the PCICU about a week after surgery. We went to the floor with 3 chest tubes in. One by one they slowly came out. We had a NG tube put in to no avail. He began throwing up everything that was put into his belly. He started retaining fluid around his lungs. Then about 2 weeks later everything began to fall in place. We went home about 2 1/2 weeks after surgery. Our shortest stay ever. After his surgery though, he started loosing a lot of weight so on August 13, 2009 he went in for surgery to have a G-Tube put in.

Christian is now six years old. He now finally weighs about 35 lbs. and is the size of about a three year old, but his love of life outweighs it all.

Christian White was born with a half of heart, but he loves with a whole heart.

Proud Heart Mom
Leeanne White