Mum's hero team GIVING GIGI A FLYING CHANCE

Twice her daughter has needed life-saving treatment

- Kasia De Vydt-Jillings

A s tiny newborn Lockwood Gigi was wheeled in for openheart surgery at just seven days old, mum Charlotte remembers her overwhelming feeling was excitement.

It might seem like an unexpected emotion in the face of a seven-hour surgery, but for the Bay of Plenty mum it was a huge relief her baby girl was alive and well enough to undergo the operation after a potentially fatal heart defect was discovered during pregnancy.

"It was scary, but I was just so excited," recalls Charlotte, 39. "It was a time of celebration because I knew it was such a good opportunity to have this life-saving surgery, and that we were in such good hands with Starship Children’s Hospital and one of the top paediatric surgeons in the world.”

Born with pulmonary atresia, a right ventricle heart defect found during a routine 20-week ultrasound, Charlotte was repeatedly told Gigi only had a 50 percent chance of surviving the pregnancy and birth.

“That was the worst-case scenario, but I was always such a firm believer she was going to be okay,” shares home stylist Charlotte. “When I felt her kicking inside me, she felt so lively and active, and I had such a connection with her that I knew we were going to prove them all wrong.”

And Gigi has proved to be a little legend, defying the odds from the minute she was born on September 4, 2019, breathing independently.