Keri Young and her husband, Royce, were just like any other expecting parents, up until the 19-week ultrasound. It was then that doctors gave them heartbreaking news: their daughter, Eva, didn’t have a brain. Devastated as they were, it was in that moment that Keri decided she would carry her baby to term and donate her organs.
“Somehow, through full body, ugly crying, Keri looked up and asked, ‘If I carry her full term, can I donate her organs?’” Royce recently wrote in a post. “In literally the worst moment of her life, finding out her baby was going to die, it took her less than a minute to think of someone else and how her selflessness could help.”
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That selflessness has inspired, not only her husband, but the entire world.
“There I was, crestfallen and heartbroken, but I momentarily got lifted out of the moment and just stood in awe of her. I was a spectator to my own life, watching a superhero find her superpowers,” Royce wrote. “it hit me that, not only am I married to my very best friend, but to a truly remarkable, special human being.”
Still, the journey has been hard, and will only get harder. Yes, they will get to hold and welcome their daughter into the world, but then they will have to let her go.
“We’re getting closer to the finish line, and while it’s going to be amazing to run through that tape and meet Eva, it comes at a cost,” Royce wrote. “We’ll go to the hospital for a birth and go home without a baby.”
Royce says he is especially concerned about how Keri will cope once it all starts to hit, once they return home.
“The light at the end of her nine-month tunnel will turn into a darkness she’s never felt before a couple hours or days after Eva is born,” Royce wrote. “She’s the one that is going to deal with all that comes with having a baby – her milk coming in, her recovery process, etc., but with no snuggly, soft, beautiful newborn to look at to remind you that it was all worth it.”
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Yet, somehow, he knows that the pain wouldn’t have been any less if they had decided to terminate. Loss is loss. Grief is grief. And if there is anyone that can handle a burden this heavy, Royce says it is most certainly his wonderful wife.
“She’s TOUGH. She’s BRAVE. She’s incredible. She’s remarkable. She’s cut from a different cloth,” Royce wrote. “And somehow, she’s my wife. Not that I needed some awful situation like this to actually see all of that, but what it did was make me want to tell everyone else about it.”
