Windsor baby waits for Christmas miracle

Home for the holidays is an impossible wish for a Windsor family this year.

Instead, the Warders, a family of five, will spend Christmas at the Ronald McDonald House in Toronto, where one-year-old McKayla Warder waits for a new heart.

It's been a year and McKayla continues to beat the odds against her.

'She wasn't expected to be born into this world breathing.' — Justin Warder

She underwent experimental surgery while in her mother's womb. The procedure was to stop blood from backing up into her lungs. She was the first to survive the procedure.

McKayla's father, Justin Warder, said the team of doctors were ecstatic and celebrated the success by high-fiving in the operating room.

"She wasn't expected to be born into this world breathing much less making any kind of noise," her father Justin Warder said. "But she surprised everyone. She came out belting out all kind of noises and we were loving it." 

The celebration was short.

At three months of age McKayla's lungs, heart and kidneys were failing. The doctors were ready to give up.

"They were saying, 'we don't see her surviving this.' But the next day her kidneys kicked in. The next day her heart started working better. And the next day her lungs kicked in. Man, we were ecstatic," Justin said.

Living on edge

However, McKayla isn't in the clear yet. She still needs a new heart.

And that's why her family lives at the Ronald McDonald House in Toronto.

"Every time the phone rings, you stop breathing for a second. Your heart stops pumping," said McKayla's mother Rejeanne Warder.

While they wait, the Warders are live an entirely different life than they did in Windsor.

Both parents have taken a leave from their job. They're paying bills in both Windsor and Toronto. And McKayla's brother Zak and sister Jasmine go to school at the Ronald McDonald House.

"They miss home," Rejeanne said. "Home is home."

Justin says he and his wife try to remain positive, particularly in front of the kids.

"We can't really get depressed around them. They feel it and they start to feel despair. So we don't think about it. We don't talk about it," Justin said. "But we do know, obviously, in the back of our minds that one day  it could all change."

Doctors warn that if a heart doesn't come soon enough. Change, and not for the better, could come quickly. Justin and

Rejeanne are prepared for the worst.

"I just thank God to have her here and now and lover her up as much as we can; lots of kisses and hugs and no regrets," Rejeanne said.

Justin dreams of what it would be like to have McKayla receive a new heart.

"I think it's going to feel like when you have your first baby and the father is running around like an idiot," Justin said. "I feel like I'm going to be the guy that's running around like an idiot."