Maia's Story

Maia Jade Akao

We found out in Feb.2002 that we were expecting our third child in Oct. Our other children Jacob 9 and Leahi 7 were as excited as we were. Right after she was born they put her under an oxygen hood, she stayed there for 24 hours and we were told they would have to send her somewhere else since they did not know what was wrong. They took her by ambulance to Savannah Ga. an hour away from where we were.

By the time we got there they were loading her onto a life-flight to Atlanta. They told us to say goodbye since they only gave her a 5% chance of making it to Atlanta. We found out that she had transposition of the great arteries which makes blood pump the wrong way, a hole between her pumping chambers and her aortic arch had closed itself off. We had to drive the five hours to Atlanta not knowing if our baby was going to be alive when we got there. She was but barely it took eight days for her to get strong enough to have a chance to survive the surgery and after eight long hours!

Her surgery was over and she was off the by-pass machine. We were able to take her home on Halloween. She is now three and a half months old and we are all so happy she is here with us.

Submitted by: Timothy & Melanie Akao