By Alex Keilty

They found out something was wrong when Anna-mary Geist had an ultrasound at 12 weeks pregnant: her baby’s heart wasn’t formed properly.

“They told us his heart defect was so severe that he wouldn’t make it to delivery,” Anna-mary recalled.

At one of her subsequent prenatal checkups, the doctor said, ‘I don’t know how he is still surviving,’ remembered Anna-mary. “You hope for the best, you pray a lot,” she said.

But survive he did. All the way through a full-term pregnancy until he could be delivered by c-section to be born at noon on September 1, 2010 with two teams of doctors waiting for him in the delivery room, nobody knowing what to expect. Baby Samuel was immediately rushed to a nearby children’s hospital, accompanied by Anna-mary’s husband, Jerry. Anna-mary didn’t see their baby again until after 10 p.m. that night.

“Oh my gosh, he is so cute!” That was her first thought when she saw Samuel, known as Sam, who was severely swollen from fetal hydrops, with wires attached all around him, along with tubes for breathing and feeding.

Their baby was born with Kabuki syndrome – a rare congenital disorder that can affect many body systems, including the heart, intestines, kidneys, and skeleton. Sam had a congenital heart defect – HLHS – hypoplastic left heart syndrome. HLHS is when the left side of the heart does not form correctly, and in Sam’s case, not at all, which affects blood flow through the heart and out into the body.

“He basically has half a heart,” explained Anna-mary.

At 36 hours old, their baby needed open-heart surgery that required several blood transfusions. That is how Anna-mary’s journey with the American Red Cross began.

“I came to the Red Cross because the people who receive Red Cross donations are the people who saved him,” said Anna-mary, about the donors who provided Sam’s life-saving blood transfusions.

Anna-mary had donated blood before Sam came along. But after he was born, his family – which includes his father Jerry, and sisters Emily, 15, and Julia, 10 – began to host an annual Red Cross blood drive. They hold it in the first week of September in their hometown in Massachusetts to commemorate Sam’s birthday and as a way to give back to the community.

An open-heart surgery at two days old was not Sam’s last. In his life he has had three open-heart surgeries that all required blood transfusions, and 17 surgeries in all.

“He is a fighter. He clearly wants to be here for something,” said Anna-mary. “We are just along for the ride.”

Today, Sam is a happy and active 13-year-old who attends regular school with some support and plays adaptive sports every week – baseball, basketball, soccer and lacrosse – with other special needs children. His mom says in addition to being the player, sometimes he plays the coach and dresses in a suit, while other days he’s a cheerleader when the mood strikes him.

“He is such a gift. If there is a way we can give back to someone else, why wouldn’t we? Blood donations are easy… and free!” she said.

In addition to Sam’s annual birthday blood drive, in 2023 Anna-mary started hosting quarterly blood drives at Intuit’s global headquarters in Mountain View, California. She is employed by Intuit as an indirect tax research manager and project manager. Anna-mary most recently donated blood on May 7, 2024 at a blood drive at Intuit where 30 of her fellow employees made appointments to donate as well.

Sam also appreciates the blood donors who saved his life. He greets them at his blood drives with the biggest smile. Anna-mary said, “He knows the gift he has been given.”

Photos of the blood drive at Intuit on May 7, 2024 can be viewed here.