On January 1, 2010 my daughter Hazel was born.  Less than 24 hours later she was flown to the closest Children's Hospital where she was diagnosed with a CHD, Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome.  After undergoing two open heart surgeries, she was unable to come off ECMO support and died in my arms on January 14^th. 

I had never heard of a congenital heart defect before Hazel, but in the weeks following her death I knew I was called to be a heart mom.  I wanted to do something to help other families like mine but didn't know what.  When I heard about It's My Heart I was very interested and inquired about starting a chapter.  Thankfully, I knew two awesome people willing to take on the roles of officers that were eager to start this journey with me.  The Southern Minnesota Chapter became official with the state in April 2010.

Our chapter has grown very quickly over the past few months which is a testament to how real the statistic of 1 in 100 really is.  Although the name of our chapter is region specific, we are currently doing our best to serve the needs of our entire state.

We have three major Children's Hospitals within two hours or so of us.   We are currently serving two of the three with our Comfort Bags, at a rate of 50 bags per month.  We hope to get the final hospital on board soon which will add another 40 bags per month.  

Before our chapter even became official, we began planning our first awareness walk.  This was ambitious, but the success of it was more than I could have imagined thanks to our volunteers and heart families.  On September 11^th over 220 people came together to show their support for IMH; it was a day I will never forget.   We are currently planning a 5K Walk/Run for May 2011 in a different Minnesota city that promises to be just as successful.

Serving as large of an area as we do has been challenging, but we are doing our best to face this head on.  We hold monthly support group meetings that we are working to develop based on the feedback of our families.  We try and alternate these meetings with group activities located in various places so we can include more people.  We had a picnic this past August in the Twin Cities, are planning a Christmas event for December, and we are excited to sponsor a day of bowling for all of our families in February to celebrate CHD Awareness Week. 

In the future our chapter hopes to expand to serving more hospitals with our Comfort Bags.  We are building our officer and volunteer base so we can offer more services for our families.  We are excited about holding two awareness walks each year.   We hope to work closer with local hospitals to implement pulse ox screening and educate them on CHD.  We also plan to make a sizable donation each year to research as this is close to all of our hearts. 

The Southern Minnesota Chapter has grown quickly and we are working hard to make sure it is built on a foundation that will sustain us.  We look forward to continuing to build support within our communities, and most importantly, serve our heart families to the best of our ability.  I think our chapter vision statement says best what we are all about: To Heal All Broken Hearts.