The four-year-old boy was headed into heart surgery all alone—a sad circumstance that would soon unleash a “butterfly effect of kindness,” as his anesthesiologist became his mother, helping to deliver the stable home life he never had.
The duo first met in 2022, after the boy named True was born with congenital heart disease requiring surgery, and he spent his earliest years in foster care. On the day of his operation at Children’s Nebraska hospital, his social worker had COVID, so True was admitted for the surgery by himself.
That’s when Dr. Amy Beethe walked in.
“He was sitting there all alone,” Beethe told KETV in Omaha. “It took me back that this 4-year-old was going to go through heart surgery and nobody was there.”
True’s procedure took about 7 hours and Amy spent most of that time thinking about the sweet little kid who was going through it all by himself.
Dr. Amy eventually contacted True’s case worker and learned a little more about the boy. He had six siblings, five of whom were placed with a grandmother due to a domestic violence situation. None of them were thriving, and it was hard to find a permanent home for True considering all his medical needs.
Before long, the social worker asked Amy a question that would soon change everyone’s lives: Are you an option?
The answer was already waiting in Amy’s heart. She was currently a mom of six, with three biological children and three who were adopted. But, she knew her family, and her heart, had room for one more.
“After I dropped True off in recovery, I called my husband and I just said, ‘We need to have a talk when we get home. I need you to have an open mind’,” Amy told Steve Hartman of CBS news. (Watch his great video below…)
When Amy’s husband, Ryan, met True in the hospital, he immediately fell in love with him—and the 4-year-old became a Beethe about a month after his surgery.
Then, an even more remarkable thing happened. The Beethes realized how close True was with his other siblings, so Amy sought to find them foster homes too, so the kids could all stay connected.
Amy’s sister adopted one of the girls and her sister-in-law’s family adopted another. A coworker adopted two more, and then, Amy and Ryan opened their hearts and home again to adopt True’s sister Laney.
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“The six all found homes,” Amy told the Washington Post—and the adoptions all became official in August 2023, during “one big, huge adoption” ceremony. (See the family portrait below the video…)
It’s hard to measure the positive impact Amy has added to the siblings’ lives, but the biggest benefits likely belong to True. His heart condition will almost certainly require a transplant someday, a procedure that wouldn’t be possible without a reliable support system.
“Without a successful, loving home life, a patient like True with extraordinarily complex congenital heart disease would not be able to survive,” True’s doctor, Jason Cole, told CBS.
So, in 2022, when the little boy’s broken heart required surgery, he may have entered the hospital waiting room all alone, but there was an angel on the other side of the curtain who would fill his future with family—and his heart full of love.
Her name was Dr. Amy.
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