Baby Audrina Cardenas ( Mayra Beltran / Houston Chronicle )
I was so happy to see this article (and beautiful picture) featured
on the front page of the Sunday edition of the Houston Chronicle, especially this weekend. Tiny Audrina Cardenas was
born three months ago with ectopia cordis, a condition that affects six to
eight out of every one million babies, and is almost always fatal. When Audrina
was born at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, more than one-third of her
heart was outside of her chest. After a risky surgery to place her heart inside
her chest cavity and three months in the hospital, Audrina is expected be
cleared to return home as soon as this Tuesday. She is the longest-living
survivor of ectopia cordis on record in the state of Texas.
Audrina’s parents, Ashley Cardenas, 25, and Toribio
Rodriguez, 28, found out about their daughter’s condition when an ultrasound at 16
weeks revealed the baby’s heart sitting on top her chest. Devastated by the
diagnosis, the parents were forced to choose between aborting their baby and “hoping
for the best but preparing for the worst.” The
full story is behind the Chronicle’s
online firewall, unfortunately, but here’s a snippet:
As the news sinks in, Cardenas and
Rodriguez do consider termination. “I don’t want to bring a child into the
world who won’t have any quality of life,” Cardenas says. “We don’t want her to
suffer.”…
At the same time, Cardenas asks
herself, “Who wants to take a life away? Who wants to stop a beating heart?”
By now, she is 17 weeks along. As
she understands Texas law, she doesn’t have much time if she decides she does
want to terminate. Every day is a torment. She tells close friends and
relatives, “You won’t know what it feels like to make a decision like this
until you are in my shoes.” …
The couple finally agree that if
they can’t decide to abort, that is a decision of sorts.
“Let’s let it play out,” they tell
each other.
Today, after months of therapy, feeding and breathing tubes,
and countless tests, Baby Audrina will soon be able to leave the hospital and join
her parents and two older sisters at home.
[Cardenas] would like to tell her
baby, “It doesn’t matter if you can’t play sports when you’re older. I think
you’re a dancer.”
And she would like to tell other
pregnant women who heard the dreaded diagnosis, ectopia cordis, “Don’t give up.
Don’t assume the worst. There is hope.”
Beautiful.