The story of Jillian Baker

Jillian Baker was born a full term baby. Doctors at the hospital where Jillian was born had detected what was initially thought to be just a heart murmur, but Jillian’s newborn heart was under a great deal of additional stress. What should have been the happiest time of her parents’ lives quickly turned into their worst nightmare.

Jillian’s mother took Effexor throughout her pregnancy because she was assured it was safe. She never imagined it could potentially cause her child to suffer from Effexor birth defects.

When Jillian was just one month old, she suffered full cardiac failure. Doctors discovered that Jillian’s heart murmur was caused by malformations that occurred while her heart was forming during the first trimester of her mother’s pregnancy.  As a result of those fetal malformations, her heart was riddled with holes. She was diagnosed with a very large hole between the right and left ventricles of her heart called a Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD). Jillian also had an Atrial Septal Defect (ASD), a hole in the wall (septum) of the heart that divides the top two chambers of the heart (atrium). Doctors also found a Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO), an incomplete closure of the heart’s wall that can cause oxygenated blood to mix with unoxygenated blood. When merely five months old, Jillian underwent open heart surgery. Her parents were faced with the fact that their daughter might not survive.

Jillian is now four-years-old, and suffers from physical delays. Although she has managed to survive these hurdles thus far, Jillian will always be reminded of her struggles as an infant by the large surgical scar she bears on her chest, and her parents will never forget what they went through and what she overcame.

All names have been changed to protect privacy.