After rare diagnosis and two surgeries, Franklin Square baby has bright future

Jack Foley, 9 months old, was diagnosed with a heart defect last February, when he was still in him mother's womb.

Courtesy Lauren Foley

Lauren and Robert Foley with their son, Jack, who was diagnosed with a heart defect.

Courtesy Lauren Foley

• 
• 

Franklin Square residents Lauren and Robert Foley were the happiest they’d ever been when they found out in 2010 that they were finally going to be parents. As most expecting parents do, they filled their time making arrangements for the baby — whose gender, they decided, would be a surprise — reading parenting books and researching the need-to-knows of pregnancy.

But nothing could have prepared them for the news they received last Feb. 9. During a regular sonogram visit, the Foleys were told that the fetus had an extremely rare and often deadly congenital heart defect known as hypoplastic left heart syndrome.

Their pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Sean Levchuck, explained that the left side of the baby’s heart was and would remain undeveloped, and the condition would necessitate three open-heart operations before the child reached age 3 — surgeries that would not ensure that their baby’s life would be saved and could not make his or her heart function the way a normal child’s does.

“We were devastated, and so were the rest of our families,” Lauren said, adding that afterward, “I remember sitting in [the baby’s] nursery and just crying. I even questioned whether I should have a baby shower … it was heart-wrenching.”

On April 25, Lauren gave birth to a son, Jack Michael, at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in Manhattan. Despite doctors’ warnings that he would not be able to cry immediately after being born and would have a bluish tinge, he looked like a typical baby. “He was beautiful,” Lauren remembered.

Four days later, Jack underwent his first open-heart surgery, performed by Dr. Emile Bacha. Doctors inserted a shunt in his heart in order to keep his oxygenated and deoxygenated blood from mixing, which could negatively affect every organ as well as the central nervous system. “He came through the surgery like a superhero,” Lauren said.