In 2025, two babies were born with heart defects, leaving their parents worried about their infants’ future. They had no idea that a third baby’s heart would save their children’s lives.

Here are their stories.

Kassie Riley holds J.R. Riley as Rhian Ray holds Grace Ray in June 2025.Courtesy of Kassie Riley
Baby Grace’s story

Rhian Ray had a normal pregnancy and delivery with her second daughter, Grace. But after she was born in March 2026, nurses noticed Grace’s oxygen was low, and they heard a heart murmur.

An initial X-ray showed the newborn’s heart was enlarged, and an echocardiogram revealed that the heart muscle wasn’t squeezing at the rate it should. Grace was taken via helicopter to UNC-Chapel Hill. There she was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, a progressive heart muscle disease.

Due to the seriousness of the condition, Rhian, also mom to 3-year-old Margaret, was transferred to Duke Children’s Hospital & Health Center, where doctors tried various medications. They didn’t work.

The only option was a heart transplant, Rhian, 35, says. “The day I found out she was going to need one, I was a hot mess. I cried the whole day.”

Rhian Ray, Riley Ray, Margaret Ray and Grace Ray at Duke Health on March 29, 2025.Courtesy of the Ray family

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Grace was placed on the heart transplant list on her one-month birthday. She was so ill that Rhian worried her daughter would be too sick to have the transplant when a heart became available. She spent 45 days on the list.

Finally, Rhian and her husband Riley Ray, 34, got the call that a donor had been found.

On the day of the transplant, amid hectic conversations with the surgeon and the anesthesiologist, Rhian and Ray were told there was another baby in the hospital that needed heart valves. Since Grace’s were perfectly healthy (unlike her heart muscle), would they be willing to donate the valves?

It was a no-brainer. “I don’t know how anyone could say no to that,” Rhian says. “If you’re getting a donated heart, you should be required to give anything that you can give.”

Grace Ray after her heart transplant, May 10, 2025.Courtesy of the Ray family
But an hour before Grace was supposed to be wheeled back for surgery, the head of the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit walked into Grace’s room. “I knew something was wrong,” Rhian says. “I was like, ‘This is not good.’ “ The woman was shaking her head.

The donor family had decided they needed more time.

“We were devastated, but we didn’t blame the family at all for their decision,” Rhian says.

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Four days later, a different heart was found for Grace. She was to undergo a transplant on Saturday, May 10, 2025.

Rhian and Riley were cautiously optimistic, given what had happened previously. But the surgery became a reality, and Grace’s valves were donated.

“What else would have happened to them?” Rhian says. “Maybe they would’ve gone to research. Maybe they would’ve been thrown out as medical waste.”

Instead, they saved another baby’s life.

That baby was J.R. Riley.

Rhian Ray, Grace Ray, Riley Ray and Margaret Ray on June 18, 2025.Courtesy of the Ray family
Baby J.R.’s story:

At an anatomy scan shortly before Christmas 2024, Kassie Riley was told that part of her baby’s heart was missing. The baby was diagnosed with truncus arteriosus, a rare, life-threatening congenital birth defect where a single common blood vessel leaves the heart instead of the usual two.

“It was a lot of fear and unknowns,” says Kassie Riley, 31, a high school counselor who lives in Hamptonville, N.C. “My immediate thought was like, ‘I need my phone so I can google. I need to know — what does this mean? What’s his life going to look like? Is he going to survive this?’ ”

Since her baby would need to undergo heart surgery as soon as he was born, Kassie and her husband Jacob Riley, a 33-year-old high school teacher, were told she couldn’t deliver him at any of the hospitals near their home. They would have to drive two hours to Duke Health.

From Left: Jacob Riley, Bennett Riley, Kassie Riley, Jackson Riley and J.R. Riley in April 2025.Courtesy of Kassie Riley
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The operation was the only way to save his life. “In my own hands, he wouldn’t make it,” Kassie says. “And I think as a parent, that’s a really hard place to sit. There’s nothing I could do for him in and of myself,” she says.

Joel Raymond (known as J.R.) was born April 30, 2025, weighing 6 lbs., 13 oz. He is the youngest of three boys; his brothers are now 3 and 5.

Kassie got to hold him before he was whisked away for surgery to correct his life-threatening birth defect. The original plan was to detach the pulmonary arteries from the common artery and properly connect the arteries and close the defect.

But less than 12 hours after he was born, the baby started crashing, she says. “With his condition, the heart wasn’t able to pump the blood to other organs, so they start shutting down. His body was in distress.”

Doctors performed a lifesaving procedure to push J.R.’s blood to his other organs. They waited a week for him to get stronger before scheduling a partial heart transplant, hopefully with new valves.

J.R. Riley in July 2025.Courtesy of Kassie Riley
In preparation for the surgery, J.R. was taken for a precautionary MRI. It turned out that he had a brain bleed, which sometimes happens with birth trauma. But they had to delay his surgery as they waited for it to heal.

Had Grace’s first heart transplant gone through as planned, J.R. would not have been eligible for surgery.

But by the time a new heart had been found for Grace, J.R. was cleared for his procedure. Grace got a new heart on May 10, 2025. Two days later, on May 12, 2025, at only 12 days old, J.R. got the valves from Grace’s heart.

“It makes me very emotional, to be honest,” says Kassie. “I think about that first donor family and how courageous they were to give in such a great deal of loss. And then for Grace’s mom to then say, “Yeah, we want to pay that forward too. The difference that that has made for J.R. and will make for his life — there really aren’t words to describe how much it means.”

The hope is the valves will grow with him, and he won’t need additional open-heart surgeries.

J.R. Riley and Grace Ray in June 2025.Courtesy of Kassie Riley
The mothers say they did their own “detective work” while they were in the hospital to figure out who was the heart donor and who was the recipient. Kassie says she was pretty sure it was Grace because of the “Happy Heart Day” stickers on her door. But she didn’t want to intrude.

One day, Rhian decided to knock on J.R.’s door. “Did you get a partial heart transplant?” she asked. And when Kassie said yes, Rhian told her the valves were from her daughter’s heart.

“I was actually holding J.R. and I just started crying,” Kassie recalls. “I remember just saying, ‘Thank you.’ “

The two moms also felt connected due to a coincidence in names: While J.R.’s last name is Riley and Grace’s dad is Riley Ray, his given first name is actually Jonathan. So he is also a J.R.

“The fact that it was J.R. Riley was just bizarre,” Rhian says. “We felt like it was very meant to be.”

Bennett Riley, J.R. Riley and Jackson Riley in July 2026.Courtesy of Kassie Riley
The moms have remained friends since their children were discharged from the hospital in June 2025.

“Grace’s mom has been such a friend to me,” Kassie says. “The hospital stay is its own thing to survive. And then you get home with these kids and it’s like they’re different than my other kids. I’m monitoring healthcare and medicines — having a friend that understands is amazing. We’ve texted each other like, ‘Hey, what do you think about this? What’d you do about this? Should I go to the hospital?’ Just having somebody who gets it has been really nice.”

They know they are the lucky ones. “We made friends at the hospital who did not get to take their babies home,” Kassie says. “There’s a heavy weight to that. The fact that both J.R. and Grace are in a good spot has allowed for this friendship to develop in a very easy way. I’m just so grateful.”