Cory Wharton and Taylor Selfridge are asking for prayers as 7-month-old daughter Maya Grace underwent open heart surgery Wednesday. The Challenge and Teen Mom OG alum took to Instagram on the day of Maya’s surgery to pray for the beginning of a new, healthy chapter for his little girl with the success of her surgery.
“The day is finally here @mayagrace.wharton has her open heart surgery today. All I’m asking, is for everybody to keep us in your prayers and keep praying for her & the doctors that will be working on her heart,” he wrote. “We have been anticipating this day for so long all the anxiety that has built up for months. I just can’t wait for her heart to be fixed. Then we can move on from this chapter. Again thank you all, & I’ll keep you all updated.”
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Maya, who was born on June 1, was diagnosed before birth with tricuspid atresia, which Wharton explained at the time was a form of congenital heart disease that “happens when the heart’s tricuspid valve does not develop. This valve plays a part in the heart’s essential function, which is to pump blood between the lungs and body.” The condition is treated with multiple surgeries, and Wednesday’s procedure is the first of two open-heart surgeries Maya will be required to undergo. The second will occur around age 3 or 4.
Wharton is also father to daughter Mila Mae, 2, with Selfridge, and shares 5-year-old daughter Ryder with Teen Mom‘s Cheyenne Floyd. Selfridge revealed in June that she was around 22 weeks pregnant when doctors told her that Maya would be born with tricuspid atresia.
“Our lives turned upside down in a matter of seconds,” she shared at the time. Despite the diagnosis, Selfridge continued that Maya “came into this world doing so much better than expected and with amazing cardiologists we were able to get a stent put in place instead of the first open heart surgery.” Having her daughter undergo her first procedure at 6 days old made Selfridge feel “very helpless in caring for [her] own child.”
“My first time really holding her was at 5 days old,” she continued. “The last 9 days have been a complete rollercoaster for us and the most challenging week I’ve had as a mother thus far. This is something I’ve wanted to share with everyone because I found myself looking for other heart mamas out there that know the pain I’m feeling and I’ve found help through some other moms.”
