Three years ago, she needed heart surgery days after birth. Today, she’s Kids Day ambassador

Street sales of the special Kids Day edition of The Fresno Bee were suspended this year due to coronavirus concerns. This story was to appear in the special edition. To make a 2020 Kids Day donation, go to valleychildrens.org/kidsday, or text GEORGE to 20222 to make an automatic $10 contribution. Kids Day will return to the streets in 2021.

Finley Tenison loves reading her “Frozen” books and playing dress-up. When not in preschool, the smiley 3-year-old can be seen rushing around her northeast Fresno home, playing with her older sister and her dolls.

The only sign of the heart condition she was born with is a small, fading scar on her chest, says her mom, Amanda Tenison.

Finley, crowned the 2020 ambassador for Kids Day, is outgoing and rambunctious. But it wasn’t too long ago that her parents worried she might not get to come home from the hospital at all.

When Finley was born at Saint Agnes Medical Center in July 2016, she was put in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Her young parents, unprepared for a baby, put her up for adoption.

That’s when Amanda and her husband, Ryan Tenison, received a surprise call while out grocery shopping. It was the call they had been waiting for for nearly two years after deciding they wanted to give their then-5-year-old daughter a sibling.

Amanda remembers vividly the moment she became Finley’s mom inside of Von’s.

“The social worker said, ‘Congratulations, mom.’ And it was like the strangest thing,” she says. “I remember I was looking at the bananas when she told me.”

The couple rushed to the hospital to meet Finley, but no one was aware at the time how serious Finley’s condition was until she was transferred from the Valley Children’s satellite NICU at Saint Agnes, to the main hospital in Madera County.

Finley was diagnosed with transposition of the great arteries, a congenital heart defect that prevents oxygenated blood from getting to the body.

“The heart has two big blood vessels that come out and carry all your blood,” says Dr. Malcolm MacDonald, Finley’s pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon at Valley Children’s.

“One blood vessel takes all your blood to your lungs, and one blood vessel takes all your blood to the rest of your body. And in transposition, those blood vessels are connected the wrong way to the heart.”

Doctors told the family that if Finley did not get heart surgery, she would not live longer than a week. As the couple prepared for her surgery, they got a call from the adoption agency, letting them know they could back out if Finley’s medical condition was a problem.

But the Tenisons had no intention of giving their daughter up.

“We loved her from the first time that we saw her,” Amanda said. “She was our daughter and our faith led us to believe that this is the right thing. That’s who God placed in our lives.”

So they waited eagerly as Finley, only a few days old, went into the operating room.

After what felt like an eternity of waiting, they finally got the good news: Finley’s surgery was a major success.

Good experiences at Valley Children’s

“This is actually a very technically challenging operation,” MacDonald says of Finley’s arterial switch. “But when it goes well, fortunately, it goes very, very well.”

“I think the hardest period of that month was definitely the first 10 to 12 days,” Amanda says. There were a lot of doctors and nurses making sure Finley was OK around the clock.

As Amanda recalls Finley’s journey, she holds a faded green journal that she’s been writing in since Finley was born. She still fills in the journal with details of Finley’s medical appointments, including her yearly cardiology checkups to make sure her heart is still growing correctly.

“With Finley we’re just so fortunate that one surgery was able to repair the condition and now it’s just about following up,” she says.

Valley Children’s staff always makes sure Finley feels comfortable on her yearly visits, according to Amanda.

“Especially when she was younger, if she was fighting the echocardiogram, they would just not do it. They’re very patient with her.”

Amanda is part of an online group with other Central Valley “heart” parents. Sometimes new parents will ask questions about care for their child. Amanda responds because she remembers being that new parent.

“I tell them, honestly, if it makes you feel better to check other places, you can. But everybody that I’ve ever known has had a really good experience with (Valley) Children’s.”

“I mean, even Dr. MacDonald himself is actually from Stanford – he’s Stanford-trained,” she said. “If it makes you feel better to say she got the surgery at Stanford, then by all means do it. But we don’t feel like we need to leave the Valley to get great care.”

This story was originally published March 9, 2020 at 6:50 PM.