**What was supposed to be the best day of their lives, turned out to be something else. Baby Sofia was born with a rare condition, leaving her parents wondering if she would survive. Want to know more?**
Sofia, Elena, Melanie and Andrea enjoying the expat life in Singapore
In 2017 Melanie became pregnant with twins and gave birth to two beautiful girls in October: Sofia and Elena.
After some examinations, the doctors discovered that Sofia's oxygen levels were dropping. They immediately admitted Sofia to the Intensive Care Unit. Sofia underwent some scans and it was discovered that her pulmonary valve was missing. She also had a hole in her heart.
Sofia’s dad, Andrea told us: "This is a really rare case but we had a very good paediatrician with a good team. It was all very stressful as you expect this to be the best day of your life and you realise that it became the worst day of your life because everything you wouldn’t ever have imagined is happening."
The situation was very severe and the young family wasn’t sure if little Sofia would survive. Melanie said: "It was very hard to see Sofia with all the tubes and not being able to hold her".
Sofia had three surgeries in total. The main surgery happened when she was 8kg, big enough to undergo an open heart surgery that took six hours. The surgery was successful and Sofia recovered really well. The twins are almost two years old now and just started pre-school.
A relieved Andrea concluded: "It's like a miracle that she recovered so well and fast from the final surgery. We are also so happy that she doesn’t need an external valve as in 90% of the cases this is the case."
