FORNEY, Texas — More than 19 years ago, Krystal Hoggan found her infant, Emma, seemingly-lifeless in her crib.
The Arlington woman rushed the baby to a nearby hospital.
She watched the medical professionals treating the infant and remembers them telling her that Emma's heartbeat wasn't strong enough.
"They asked me if I wanted to hold her while she passed away, and I did," Hoggan says.
It was SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome. Hoggan was asked if she would consider donating Emma's heart valves. She was told there was a boy that needed them.
"I knew immediately to say, 'yes,'" she says.
The only information she was told was that the boy received her baby's heart valves on Aug. 7, 2000, in Atlanta, Ga.
Hoggan thinks about that little boy and his heartbeat often.
"I wonder about his prom and his graduation," Hoggan says. "I wonder, 'Is he going off to college right now?'"
She wants to meet him and hear the sound of his heart beating with the help of a part of her daughter.
Hoggan wants people to share her story so that she can find the boy.
"He's loved by people he doesn't even know," Hoggan says.
She hopes that the boy is living an "incredible life."
"And, I hope more than anything that he hugs his mama," she says.
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