NEW ORLEANS — No parents want to hear a doctor say, "Your baby has a heart birth defect."
So it was very difficult when one Metairie couple found out all three of their children did. They turned to another family for emotional support, a family who went through a similar struggle.
"It was just shock, just pure shock," mother Erica Ramsey said about finding out her three children had heart birth defects.
"It was the worst time of our lives. It was terrible," said mother of two, Nicki Waguespack, when her oldest son, Logan, was being taken into open heart surgery as an infant.
Erica Ramsey and Nicki Waguespack have a very special bond. It's one only parents of a child with a health condition can understand.
Nicki's son Logan needed 10 hours of surgery as an infant to repair four holes in his tiny heart. Little brother, Jude, wipes mom's tears that flow as she recalls that time. Nicki will never forget the encouragement she got from the picture another mother posted in the hospital.
"He was at his first birthday party. Didn't have a shirt on. You could see his scar. And I said, 'I want to be that mom,'" Nicki Waguespack remembers thinking as her son was on a ventilator.
Logan is now 7-years-old and doing well.
"Because it was, like broken, and they needed to, like fix it,"Logan said when asked what the doctors did to his heart.
Now the Waguespacks were able to return the favor, by supporting the Ramsey family. When their third child, Wyatt, was only nine months old, a doctor gave them the news.
"'He's got a congenital heart defect,' the words I did not want to hear. No mom wants to hear that," said Wyatt's mother Erica Ramsey.
Since heart birth defects can be genetic, they had the other two older children, Julia, 8, and Wesley, junior, 6, checked, and they both had heart birth defects.
Erica is a nurse. She's taken care of heart babies in the NICU and seen the struggle.
Husband Wesley was strong in support for his wife and children. But today, the love and weight he's carried on his shoulders for a long time, came through.
"It was more watching her struggle, watching her struggle dealing with it, and knowing she knew, she knew too much. She knew too much what could happen long term," said Erica's husband, Wesley Ramsey, senior, through tears.
Wesley, junior knows his dream of being the next Joe Burrow has changed, but he and sister Julia and friend Logan, are well and being monitored for future treatment.
And Nicki will be there for Erica if they do.
"She is always there to just be, you know, so supportive and just, 'If you need anything, you know, anything you need, call me. You can call me and cry. You can call me to laugh,'" Erica Ramsey said Nicki told her.
The two families are very active in the annual American Heart Association's Heart Walk. It raises money for research to help babies with heart defects.
To sign up for the New Orleans Heart Walk on Nov. 14, 2020, click here.
To sign up for the North Shore Heart Walk on May 9, 2020, click here.
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