We are Susan and Chris, here is our son's story.   We have a little boy named Zachary who was born on March 10th, 1998.  Zachary was born with Unbalanced A-V Canal with Hypoplastic Left Ventricle, L-Loop and L-Transposition, Pulmonary Stenosis, Sub Pulmonic Stenosis, Dextrocardia with Situs Inversus, Bilateral Superior Vena Cava , Double Outlet Right Ventricle (DORV) and Transposition of the Great Arteries (TGA).  In layman's terms, Zach's heart was really messed up.  Besides the problems with his arteries and veins, his heart was on the wrong side of his body (as well as his stomach, liver and spleen), rotated backwards, and the left side didn't develop enough. We were initially told our son would be born with HLHS - Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, but as he grew and developed his diagnosis changed.   Since we found out about his conditions prenatally (17 weeks) we had 4 choices to choose from.  1) immediate termination  2) let the baby be born and do nothing (compassionate care)  3) heart transplant  4) three stage surgical repair.  The statistics initially quoted to us were not encouraging. We chose the three stage surgical procedure and proceeded to research as much as we could about it.  That is when we found the PDHeart group, and have been following the discussions periodically.  We decided to have the surgery with Dr. Edward Bove at the University of Michigan Medical Center .  Due to some complications with her pregnancy (pre-eclampsia), Susan was flown up to Michigan (U of M's Survival Flight) from the Ft. Worth, Texas Maternal Fetal Specialist's office on February 19th and stabilized until Zachary could be born via c-section (breech baby!) on March 10th, two weeks earlier than his due date.  He was a whopping 8lbs. 4 oz., with Apgars of 8 and 9.  On the 16th, Zachary had a right-sided BT shunt and did wonderfully.  He was released on the 19th and we flew home on the 20th.  Zachary has since returned to Dr. Bove at the University of Michigan for his second surgeries, the Hemi-Fontan and Bi-Directional Glenn and for his third surgery, the Fontan . Each time he had relatively short hospitalizations and very minor if any complications. Zachary had his Fontan Fenestration closed via a CardioSEAL Procedure and most recently he had an AMPLATZER® Duct Occluder Placement via a Cardiac Catheterization at Dallas' Children's Medical Center both by Dr. Thomas Zellers . Zachary has been growing and developing quite normally although he has a slight speech delay which has been improving with speech therapy.  Zach, his little sister Savannah (5/10/99) , and new little brother Alexander (11/19/2001) are the joys of our lives.    Zachary's life has far exceeded everything that we could have hoped for when we first learned about his heart conditions and possible disabilities.  Most people just don't believe he has any problems at all.   If you have a child facing heart surgeries or just would like some more information, please take a moment to read the descriptions of Zachary's surgeries.  We've included some diagrams and photos to help explain things clearly.  We've also included links to information about Zach's surgeon, the famous Dr. Edward Bove, and the U of M hospital.  If you would like to talk to us personally, please don't hesitate to contact us at our email address .  There is hope, and Zachary is living proof of that!