NDSouth: Arrival & Today: Leila

Leila arrived at New Day South in October 2012. She was scared, sad, and had a broken heart physically and emotionally. She was left at 5 months of age, probably in hope in that someone would find her and be able to help. She was weak and small, but we had high hopes for this little lady and anticipated that once again love would make a difference in the life of another child.

Leila had her much needed heart surgery in early November 2012. Her surgery was successful and she was soon released and came home to us. However as the weeks went on, she did not get better. She soon developed pneumonia which is common among children with heart conditions. We admitted her into the hospital on December 26, 2012, expecting her to be in the hospital for a few weeks to get well and would soon come home.

Unfortunately, the opposite happened. Leila did not get better, but yet became worse. She was soon in very serious condition and the doctor's were doing everything that they could for her. As the weeks and the months went on, Leila remained in the hospital. She was becoming weaker with each passing day and her little body wasn't able to fight the infection. 

We kept anticipating that she would get better but after a while, the future looked dim. The doctor's were out of options and her future looked hopeless. As hard as this was to hear, we knew that hope was never fully gone and we kept believing for a miracle for Leila's life. Finally on March 14, 2013, we received a glimmer of hope, "she was doing better." Hope was not lost!

Exceeding anything anyone thought was possible, Leila was released after being in the hospital for over 3 months and came home on April 7, 2013. You can read more about Leila's Amazing Story here.

Love once again makes a difference. And not only our love, but the love of people from all over the world. Thank you, on behalf of Leila and all of our New Day South kids, for taking part in the miracle of love.

This is the last and final post for our May Miracle of Love blog series. Thank you so much for joining us. If you missed the last few posts, read all about Sammy, Marshall, Matthew, and Hayden.