Jason and Susan Smith knew life was going to be challenging once their first child, Emerson Rose Smith, was born.
Twenty weeks through Susan’s pregnancy, doctors discovered, through an ultra sound, that Emerson had a severe heart defect called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS), a severe congenital heart defect in which the left ventricle of her heart, the one that pumps blood to the body, was underdeveloped.
Emerson was going to have open-heart surgery within the first week of her life and two more by the time she was supposed to be three years old.
On April 11, 2011, Emerson came into this world and despite appearing to be a healthy baby girl, she underwent open-heart surgery on day four of her life.