AB’s Heart Warriors on Wheels

06/17/2026

Our 2026 tournament is October 3 2026 at Briscoe Park in Snellville. If you are interested, let me know and I can send you the information! All proceeds go to the cardiac unit of CHOA!

06/14/2026

06/12/2026

We love and have every keepsake that was made for AB. Those are some of our most cherished items. Which is why last years donations were focused on crafting supplies for the nurses 💜

I’ll never forget the NICU nurses who made decorations for my baby.

Little holiday signs.
Tiny paper name signs.
Handmade decorations taped to an isolette.

To someone else, they were just decorations.
To me, they were proof that my baby was loved.

When your baby is in the NICU, you miss so much of what you imagined.

Those nurses knew that.

So they celebrated every holiday, every milestone, and every tiny victory right alongside us.

Years later, I don’t remember every monitor reading.

But I remember the decorations.

Because they reminded me that even in the hardest season of my life, my baby was never just another patient.

©️Momming On Empty

06/10/2026

Be a part of something great! Any sponsor (business or personal) becomes a part of the AB’s Heart Warriors family 💜 please share!

06/06/2026

The pulse ox read 75.
And every person in that room who didn't know — panicked.
But you knew. Or maybe nobody told you yet and you're still trying to understand why the number your baby sits at looks so different from every other baby on the floor.
Here's what you need to know.
A typical heart keeps blood separated. Oxygen-rich blood goes to the body. Oxygen-poor blood goes to the lungs. Clean. Divided. The way textbooks draw it.
A single ventricle heart does not work that way.
In a single ventricle heart — both kinds of blood mix together before it ever leaves. The body receives mixed blood. Not fully oxygenated. Not what the charts call normal.
So the number on that pulse ox?
75 to 85 percent.
That is not a crisis.
That is not failure.
That is exactly what doctors expect.
A typical heart runs 95 to 100. Your child will never see those numbers the same way. And that is okay. That is their normal. That is the heart they were born with doing exactly what it can do.
And here's the part that stops most people cold —
If doctors pushed to get that number into the high 90s? It would actually mean too much blood is flooding the lungs and not enough reaching the body. It would put more strain on an already working-overtime heart.
Lower is not always worse.
Different is not always wrong.
Your child's numbers have to be read in the context of your child's heart.
Save this. Screenshot it. Share it with every family member who grabs that pulse ox and starts to panic.
They need to understand what their child is actually fighting — and what their child's heart is actually doing.

Follow Invisible Warriors — we share the moments nobody else talks about. So no heart family ever feels invisible or alone. 💙

06/06/2026

Trauma.

It changes you.

And for heart parents, I don’t think any of us walk out of those hospital doors without carrying some of it with us.

The triggers.
The anxiety.
The hypervigilance.
The fear that lives quietly beneath the surface even on the good days.

It’s always there.

Sometimes trauma is loud. Sometimes it hides itself so well that you convince yourself you’re finally okay. Until something small cracks the door open and suddenly you’re right back there again.

Back in the ICU.
Back hearing monitors alarm.
Back waiting for a surgeon to walk through the doors.
Back holding your breath hoping your child survives another night.

People think the trauma ends when you leave the hospital.

But it follows us home.

It shows up when your child sleeps too long and panic rushes through your body before your mind can catch up.

It shows up every time someone says, “They look so healthy now.”

It shows up at routine appointments when your heart starts racing before the doctor even walks in.

It shows up when your phone rings late at night.
When you hear the word “surgery.”
When you smell hospital soap or sanitizer.
When you hear another family’s story and suddenly your own grief rises back to the surface.

And for loss moms… trauma doesn’t end with time.

Years can pass and your body still remembers.

Because trauma isn’t just about what happened.
It’s about what your body had to survive.

The truth is, heart parents learn how to function while carrying unimaginable fear. We learn how to smile while living in survival mode. We learn how to keep going while parts of us are still stuck inside hospital rooms we physically left years ago.

So if a heart parent seems overly anxious, protective, distant, emotional, or triggered by something that seems small to others, please be gentle with them.

Their nervous system has lived through storms most people could never imagine.

And some part of them is still trying to survive it.

06/05/2026

Most people have never heard of Transposition of the Great Arteries.

But for TGA families these words define everything.

Two surgeries.
One tiny heart.
One chance to get it right.

The balloon atrial septostomy comes first.

Sometimes within hours of birth.

A catheter threaded into the heart.
A balloon inflated to tear open a small hole between the chambers.
Allowing oxygen rich and oxygen poor blood to mix just enough.

Buying hours.
Buying days.
Buying time for a heart that was built backwards.

Because in TGA —
the two main arteries are switched.

The aorta connected to the wrong side.
The pulmonary artery connected to the wrong side.
Two separate loops of blood going nowhere.
Sustaining nothing.

Without intervention —
this is not survivable.

The arterial switch operation comes next.

Within the first two weeks of life.

The aorta and pulmonary artery surgically detached.
Switched back to where they belong.
Reattached.
The coronary arteries reimplanted.

On a heart the size of a walnut.

In a baby who has been alive for less than two weeks.

It is one of the most complex cardiac surgeries ever performed on a newborn.

And it is the reason TGA babies survive.

But survival is not the end of the road.

TGA survivors face lifelong cardiac monitoring.
Coronary artery complications.
Arrhythmias that develop over time.
Pulmonary artery narrowing.
Additional surgeries as they grow.
A heart that was switched back —
but never fully forgets what it went through to get there.

These babies are not fixed.

They are rerouted.
Brave.
Defying everything medicine said was possible before these surgeries existed.

And they carry it every single day.

They deserve to be understood.
Their families deserve to be seen.

💙 Drop a 💙 if this is your child’s road.

Comment WARRIOR and I will send you the link to our community directly.

Share this so the world understands what TGA families are truly living with.

Follow Invisible Warriors — we share the moments nobody else talks about. So no heart family ever feels invisible or alone. 💙

Link in bio to support CHD families right now.

06/03/2026

05/27/2026

For those who are looking for all the information is one place! Below is our sponsorship information and softball team information. Let us know if you are interested or if you have any questions 💜

10/18/2025

And that’s a wrap on 2025 fundraisers! We want to take a moment to say a special thank you to our sponsors. New or returning, we are so appreciative of every single one of you. Without yall we wouldn’t be able to host these events, to be able to give back to the cardiac unit that loved and took care of our AB 💜