Cory Wharton Reveals Baby Daughter Is Off a Ventilator After Surgery: 'Steps in the Right Direction'
Cory Wharton/Instagram
Cory Wharton's 7-month-old daughter Maya Grace is on the mend.
The Challenge star, 31, revealed in a post shared on his Instagram Story Friday that his daughter is doing well after she underwent open-heart surgery earlier in the week.
"Maya is off the ventilator!" Wharton wrote alongside a photo of himself feeding his daughter, who is seen resting in a hospital bed. "She's no longer intubated. We are going to continue to make steps in the right direction."
"I just wanna say thank you guys, sorry I haven't got all your messages. But trust me prayers were heard🙏," he added.
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Cory Wharton/Instagram
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The Teen Mom alum previously posted a photo holding his daughter right before her surgery on Wednesday. At the time, he asked "everybody to keep us in your prayers and keep praying for her & the doctors that will be working on her heart ❤️."
"We have been anticipating this day for so long all the anxiety that has built up for months," the father of three continued. "I just can't wait for her heart to be fixed. Then we can move on from this chapter."
Wharton and his girlfriend Taylor Selfridge welcomed their third child Maya on June 1. They revealed 10 days later that she was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect called tricuspid atresia.
Wharton explained that the condition "happens when the heart's tricuspid valve does not develop" and that the valve plays an important role in helping the heart to function by "pumping blood between the lungs and body."
RELATED: 'The Challenge' Star Cory Wharton's Baby Born with Heart Defect, Undergoes 'Successful Surgery'
Selfridge had previously revealed that she was around 22 weeks pregnant when Maya was diagnosed in an Instagram post.
"Our lives turned upside down in a matter of seconds," she said, adding 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."
Their daughter then had her first procedure at 6 days old, something Selfridge said made her feel "very helpless in caring for my own child."
Selfridge told her followers, "My first time really holding her was at 5 days old. The last 9 days have been a complete rollercoaster for us and the most challenging week I've had as a mother thus far."
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Maya will later need to undergo another open-heart surgery when she is 3 or 4 years old, Wharton said, in order to get her heart in top working condition.
Prior to Maya's surgery, she and her family had been in and out of the hospital prepping for the major procedure.
Back in October, Wharton shared that Maya was in the hospital to have "right and left heart catheterization with angiography, using plastic tubes in the heart to measure the pressure and oxygen levels."
"We're taking it one day at a time one procedure at a time. But on the right track 👏🏽," Wharton added at the time.
