When the father shows his newborn baby at 34 weeks everyone is paralyzedJennie Wilklow and her husband couldn’t be more excited about the arrival of her baby; certainly a mixture of emotions seizes all parents, until the time comes to take her son in her arms and make sure everything is fine.
But that peace of mind would never come to Jennie…
Αlthough during all the controls everything seemed to indicate that there would be no problem, the doctors were forced to perform an emergency caesarean section at week 34. But so far everything was going well.
“When they took her in her arms I heard her cry and they said: she is very pretty.” That’s the word every mom wants to hear, so I smiled and relaxed,” Jennie recounted.
However, when the father of her little girl, whom they named Αnna, took her in his arms for the first time, her room was filled with deathly silence. No one could understand what was happening with the baby.
“They did their best to help her, but her skin hardened in a matter of seconds and she began to crack, and sores appeared all over her body. I perceived her panicked faces and asked if everything was alright”.
Αlthough the doctors assured her that everything would be fine, they had to put her to sleep to calm her distraught mother. When she woke up from her, they revealed to her the cruel reality of her:
Her little girl suffered from the disease known as harlequin ichthyosis.
The disease is a genetic defect that causes the skin to grow approximately 14 times faster than normal, creates redness all over the body, which also affects the eyes, mouth, nose and ears.
Just looking at her husband and perceiving her terrifying silence, Jennie realized what was happening. When the doctors left her room, she told him, “This is serious!”
Babies born with this condition usually die within a few weeks, and those who survive may suffer severe motor complications.
But from that moment on, she would do whatever it took to give her little girl the quality of life she deserved, although she doesn’t deny that the first thing she thought was that she preferred her daughter d.i.ed.
But Αnna was born to be the bravest warrior of all, and she beat all the odds.
”Every two hours she covered her body with Vaseline and bathed her for several hours a day. For many years I dreamed of what I would put on my beloved daughter, and although it seemed so trivial, it was what she fought for the most, ”Jennie confesses.
”I realized that if she put limits on what she could achieve, her development would be blocked. So I decided to set the bar high. I told myself that the objective would be for her to do what she wanted to do and that same objective would be applied to myself ”.
Jennie has given the world the greatest lesson in self-sacrifice, courage and fighting spirit and that is why she shares her adventure with her beloved Αnna every day, a roller coaster of emotions she never imagined, but now she knows what her mission is in life.
