Iowa Baby Hit By Softball Returns Home

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- An Iowa baby is home recovering after a terrifying injury at her father's softball game back in May.

McKenna, 7 weeks old at the time, spent weeks at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester where doctors treated her for a brain injury. As WCCO's Kate Raddatz reports, her parents are now looking forward to a sense of normalcy.

Home. A place Kassy and Lee Hovenga weren't sure 3-month-old McKenna would be again after spending weeks unable to hold their daughter.

"We couldn't make noise in the room. We couldn't touch her," Lee Hovenga said.

Days spent watching and waiting, as seizures caused by a brain bleed became more frequent, lasting longer and longer.

"She could have a chance of stop breathing. That is not something you want to hear," Kassy Hovenga said.

Doctors put McKenna into a coma, using a ventilator to breathe for her. The seizures stopped, but led to another terrifying moment when doctors took the ventilator out.

"I looked up at her stats and her oxygen was 2. Her heart rate was dropping. She got close to having to be resuscitated because he heart was about to stop," Lee Hovenga said.

Once again, McKenna proved her strength. And on June 11, after a skull fracture, brain bleed and multiple surgeries, McKenna came home.

"Part of me was terrified leaving the hospital that I wasn't coming home with the same child," Kassy Hovenga said.

Her little personality is shining through with moments of laughter and smiles.

"We don't even know what struggles she is going to face in future. They told us we could start to see signs at 6-9 months and she might not show anything until she is starting school. It could be a learning disabilities," Kassy Hovenga said.

But for these parents, they're soaking up every moment with their little girl, because McKenna is here. Friends are hosting a fundraiser for the family tomorrow.