Olivia Bailey, Multi-Media Journalist, obailey@wcyb.com
POSTED: 5:46 PM Jan 30 2015 UPDATED: 12:36 PM Feb 02 2015
NASHVILLE, Tenn. –
Parents wait nine months for the moment they hold their precious new baby, but April and Corey Staton have had few opportunities to hold their daughter Addison. She’s spent the first month of her life at a distance.
“She was over a month old before I got to lay a hand on her,” Corey Staton said. “It’s hard to explain. There ain’t nothing in a daddy’s heart like his little girl.”
April has held her newborn just twice after Johnson City doctors discovered Addison had a major heart defect hours after birth.
“Not being able to pick her up and cuddle her when you can see she’s crying, but you can’t hear it where she’s incubated,” April said.
Addison needed immediate care for a heart transplant. On December 18, the day she was born, she was transported to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Nashville.
“You never think about organ donation at all. Then when you’re put in this situation, and you’re waiting on that phone call, it puts everything front and foremost,” Corey said.
They waited for almost a month, but that call finally came on January 20, Addison got a new heart. That’s the part that breaks a parent’s’ heart.
Read more via Heart transplant saves baby’s life | News – Home.