TIFTON — Miller Prostko of Tifton faced hardship before she was even born, but almost four years later, she and her family are pushing on, happy and hopeful for her future.

Afflicted with a heart defect that has required two surgeries and an upcoming third to remedy, the now 3-year-old Miller is a bright and energetic girl with a passion for playing dress-up, especially as those in the medical field out of admiration for what they’ve done for her and other kids in her shoes.

Twenty-four weeks into her pregnancy, Cameron Prostko and her husband were informed that their daughter had developed Ebstein’s anomaly, a condition in which the tricuspid valve of her heart had failed to develop properly, leading to improper blood flow and circulation.

For the next few months, the Prostkos traveled to and from Atlanta, meeting with fetal cardiologists, OB/GYNs, and maternal fetal medical teams weekly to monitor Miller’s condition.

“When you’re pregnant, you’re just hoping for a healthy baby — you never really think about having a child with a heart condition,” Cameron said. “We were definitely thrown in, having to learn a lot as we went. … Each doctor’s appointment was terrifying, because we never knew what we were going to hear.”

Ultimately, they were recommended by Dr. Erik Michelfelder of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta to have Cameron give birth via C-section in Atlanta to be closer to a suitable hospital.

Miller’s heart rate was dropping leading up to her birth and continued to drop moments after she was born, prompting the staff of Children’s Healthcare to transfer her to Egleston Children’s Hospital for monitoring. Two days after she was born, pediatric cardiologist Dr. Paul Chai performed an open-heart surgery on the infant, giving her a shunt to help stabilize her blood flow.

The Prostko family spent the rest of December in the hospital, meeting with various medical professionals to tend to a handful of other complications Miller faced after her birth, and four months later they returned to have their daughter undergo a Glenn procedure, meant to help reroute Miller’s blood flow from the top half of her body to other areas.

Miller has since grown into a happy and healthy girl, and out of gratitude for all Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta has done for them and their daughter, the Prostko family have decided to regularly give back to the children and families in the healthcare network’s care.

Every year on Dec 9 — Miller’s heartiversary, or the day she had her first heart surgery — the family gathers toys, arts and craft supplies, and other gifts from their friends and family in the community to donate to Children’s patients, adding a little brightness back to what should be a merry time of year.

“[The Children’s Hospital] just really make sure that even though you’re in the hospital that it’s still special, so we just always want to give back to the children because we know what they’re going through,” Cameron said. “We’ve been in the hospital at Christmas, and we just want to make sure it’s still kind of Christmas even though they’re in the hospital.”

This year, Miller will be picking out what gifts to donate, and she’s eager to continue helping out as she grows older.

Miller will receive a third surgery, the last in the set meant to help remedy her condition, next spring once she is 4. This operation, a Fontan procedure, will reroute the blood flow in the lower part of the body, much like the Glenn procedure did for her upper half.

In the meantime, the young girl’s admiration for those in the medical field has had a massive influence on her interests and imagination. Alongside dressing up as doctors and other medical experts, Miller regularly plays with toys themed around playing doctor, dentist, and hospital.

And being no stranger to the good doctors can do, she has big dreams of being able to provide that same help she received to others one day.

“When you ask her what she wants to be…” Cameron said. “If she’s not saying princess, then she’s saying a doctor.”