On June 3, 2014 Tessa Marie Rajdl was born a healthy, strong baby! An hour or so after she was born the midwife listened to her heart and heard a pronounced heart murmur. When Tessa was three days old we learned she was born with Tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart defect which are four heart defects, taken together, allowing oxygen poor blood to be pumped out of the body. She had a medium-sized VSD and pulmonary stenosis that would need monitoring over the first few months of her life. In September we learned her condition was not improving and the size of the VSD was getting larger and she would need open heart surgery to repair her defects. On October 20th, 2014 Tessa had her first open heart surgery to patch the VSD and correct the pulmonary valve to help with the pulmonary stenosis. Tessa was thriving after her first surgery but unfortunately in March of 2015 we learned Tessa's pulmonary valve was severely obstructed and creating too much pressure to pump blood through the valve and she had a severe overriding and right ventricular hypertrophy. In September of 2015 Tessa underwent a heart cathertization procedure to see if the cardiologist could balloon open her pulmonary valve to relieve some of the pressure. That procedure was unsuccessful and Tessa would then need another open heart surgery to repair the pulmonary valve and take pressure off her right ventricle. On January 27th, 2016 Tessa had her second open heart surgery. Her surgery was 12 hours long due to the fact her coronary artery was too close to her pulmonary valve and so the planned repair could not be done. Tessa had a right ventricle to pulmonary artery conduit placed to help relieve the presssure on her pulmonary valve and supply blood to her lungs. Tessa has since recovered very well and is a happy, playful toddler. Tessa will need ongoing open heart surgeries to replace the conduit in the future. Please join us in our walk to support Tessa in her heart journey!