Baby Evelyn's Story

Earlier this year, I gave birth to my beautiful daughter, Evelyn.

As the first weeks progressed, we started to worry because she wasn't having much milk, she was sleeping an awful lot and she would become very upset towards the end of the day. We always put this down to her being a newborn and doing a lot of growing.

When she was six weeks old, I took her to our GP who found that she had quite a loud heart murmur and her weight gain was very slow. We were referred to paediatrics in Lower Hutt Hospital and from there we were referred out to Wellington to see a cardiologist for an echocardiogram.

Things got worse before we were able to see a cardiologist.

By the time Evelyn was eight weeks old, she had started losing weight, and was screaming a lot due to only being able to drink 20-30mls of milk at a time. She was looking very sick.

We went back to Lower Hutt Hospital, where Evelyn was admitted on the spot. She was sent for a chest x-ray and the following morning we were rushed out to Wellington for an urgent echocardiogram. They saw she had quite a large hole in her heart and weak heart muscles that would require surgery to fix.

We were then told to go home and pack because we would be flying up to Auckland’s Starship Hospital so Evelyn could have lifesaving open heart surgery.

We were in hospital for a month. The surgeons at Starship Hospital fixed our gorgeous daughter’s heart. She spent a solid four plus hours on a bypass machine and received numerous blood transfusions throughout her surgery.

I am a blood donor and, for as long as I am able to be, I always will be a blood donor. I will be forever thankful for the beautiful, amazing people that give their time and their blood to help others.

Without these generous, caring people, my daughter would not be here today, thriving, growing and learning.

Thank you to the amazing people for giving my daughter a chance at life.