Heartbeats of Hope: standing strong with Mianke ❤️‍🩹

Mianke Breetvelt was born on 07 November 2023. Diagnosed at birth with Down-syndrome, we expected to face some challenges…. But little did we know.

3 days after birth we received the news that she has an unbalanced AVSD. (This is an unbalanced atrioventricular septal defect.) A heart defect in which there are holes between the chambers of the right and left sides of the heart, and the valves that control the flow of blood between these chambers are misaligned and may not be formed correctly.

Mianke was 5 weeks old when she had undergone her first heart operation. The operation was a PA Band to control the blood flow to the lungs, in order to prevent the lungs filling with blood. With her odds being less than 10% for success, we as a family stood together and called upon the Lord to take over.

Just after Christmas we brought our beautiful baby home with the first hurdle behind us.

4 months later, a catheterization was scheduled to determine the next step. Once again with the odds against her, a panel of 10 doctors sat together and the decision were finally m...