This Boy Was Born at 18 Weeks, Then His Mum Carried Him and Saw Something That Made Her Heart Stop

At 18 weeks, a baby is at least 5.5 inches long and, even though all its fingers, toes, and other body parts are already formed, it is still too fragile to live outside the warm interior of its mother’s womb. Charity Tanner, the mother in the story, was a loving and caring mother who would do anything to keep her baby safe. She tried to prevent a premature delivery from happening because she knew her baby wouldn’t survive, but nature took its course, and she had to deliver the baby.

It all started with two lines on the pregnancy test indicating that Charity was pregnant with another child. Charity had noticed the signs of pregnancy, as she was already a mother of two, but decided to take a test to confirm. The result was positive, and their joy knew no bounds when her husband, Matt, came back. He was so overjoyed and couldn’t wait to share the news with their little children for the big reveal.

Charity and Matt gave their kids gift bags with baby socks, swaddling blankets, and the framed ultrasound picture and asked them to guess what the items meant. Ryan, their eight-year-old son, said, “Baby stuff!” After a while, he said, “You’re pregnant!” with a big grin on his face. This was shown in a video Charity recorded at the event. The family was pretty excited to welcome the baby, and the children, in particular, couldn’t wait to meet their younger brother.

Just about a month after Charity began to bleed, a pregnant woman bleeding means there was something wrong somewhere. Charity was so afraid she might have miscarried, so she quickly went to the hospital to see a doctor. The doctor said that she had a complication called placenta previa.

This condition is when a baby’s placenta attaches to the wrong place in the mother’s uterus, and in Charity’s case, the baby was covering her cervix. The doctors told her that, in most cases, the problem often corrected itself, and that in worse cases where no correction was made, they would have to perform a Caesarean section once the baby made it to at least 24 weeks. At 24 weeks, the baby had a good chance of surviving despite being born prematurely. Charity was hoping the problem would correct itself, but the bleeding didn’t stop. It even got worse.

“I was basically bleeding non-stop. It was just getting heavier as the days passed. I can’t even describe how scared I was; it was a horrifying experience,” Charity said. When the bleeding got worse, even the doctors were confused. They tried everything they could, but it yielded no results. Charity and Matt were so worried, but the mother of two was determined to keep their baby alive, so she kept on going to the doctor, hoping for good news.

One day, when she visited her obstetric clinic, she met a new doctor she had never seen before. When the doctor saw how severe the bleeding was, he encouraged Charity to terminate the pregnancy, as that was the only way to stop the bleeding. She said he told her, “They had seen this kind of thing before, and I might just keep bleeding and risk having something happen to me, or I had the option to terminate.” Charity couldn’t believe her ears.

She knew the doctor was just giving her options, but the unbelievable part was how casually he had recommended terminating the pregnancy. “My husband and I were like, ‘No, that’s not even an option. There was nothing at all wrong with this baby. He’s perfect. He’s completely, perfectly, and beautifully formed. I was going to do everything in my power to keep him alive,’ ” she said.

Charity and Matt had seen during a scan how perfectly formed their baby was, and they couldn’t even consider abortion. The baby was one they had been anticipating. “My baby had its own life, its own beating heart, and it was alive and had potential. Taking all that away was not something I could do,” she said.

Long before the baby was conceived, Matt had dreamed about a baby boy who was going to bring something special into their family. So when Charity found out she was pregnant, they had both been sure it was going to be a boy. And when the scan confirmed it, they knew their special boy was there. So clearly, abortion was not an option for them.

However, when the pregnancy was just 18 weeks old, something terrible happened. Charity woke up in the middle of the night in severe pain. She realized that something terrible was about to happen. She tried not to raise an alarm and wake her sleeping husband, but when her contractions kept getting worse, more intense, and painful, she was left with no choice. Matt hurriedly woke their two kids, Ryan and Kaylee, because there was no one around who could watch over them. He grabbed the car keys and led his wife and children to the car. The children knew something was wrong because their mother was in pain, and they had gone out in their pajamas.

On the way to the hospital, Charity kept hoping and praying that her baby would be able to stay for 24 weeks before being delivered. Matt knew how worried his wife was, so he tried consoling her despite being worried himself. When they got to the hospital, the pain had become so severe that Charity could not walk herself and had to be wheeled in on a wheelchair. She was quickly attended to by nurses and doctors.

An ultrasound was carried out to know the position of the baby, and it showed that the baby had already descended and was ready to be delivered. The pregnant woman was rushed to the labor room to make her delivery more comfortable. Nevertheless, Charity protested that her baby wasn’t ready to be born yet, but nature took its course, and she found herself pushing out an 18-week-old baby. “But I didn’t want to push because I just wanted him to be okay, and that meant him staying inside me,” she said.

On delivery, the tiny fragile baby was still wrapped in his protective amniotic sac. Everyone in the room was sure the baby had passed away because the ultrasound that was done before the delivery had hardly picked up a heartbeat. After the birth, the nurse picked up the baby and opened up the amniotic sac. She asked the parents, Charity and Matt, if they wanted to see the body.

The couple could barely utter any words; instead, they just indicated that they wanted to. Filled with severe anguish, the parents held the perfectly formed body of their baby. His toes and fingers had completely formed; his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth were also completely formed. They saw that he was indeed a boy. Red veins were seen running on his almost transparent and delicate skin. His skin was so moist that it had started sticking to the blanket that was wrapped around him. A nurse saw this and came to place him on a plastic before wrapping him in a blanket to protect the skin. Charity believed he was the most beautiful baby she had ever seen.

As the parents cuddled their baby, they noticed something shocking. They saw their baby’s chest rise and fall, and they also felt his heartbeat. They quickly called the attention of the nurses, and after the nurses checked, they were told it was most likely electrical impulses. Charity and Matt knew what they had seen and felt; they felt the presence of life and were so amazed by it that they quickly recorded the moment.

The mother was so grateful that she had the opportunity to spend that precious moment with her son. Charity describes that split second as one of the happiest moments of her life. She wanted to share it with her children too, so she asked Matt to inform them about the incident and bring them over to meet their brother. Matt went to bring in Ryan and Kaylee, who were waiting close by.

When he told them the news, their faces dropped. On their way to the hospital, they were optimistic about taking their brother home with them, but the kids were devastated to find out he had already left them behind. The family spent almost an hour with the little boy, holding him and taking turns to give him soft kisses. It was a heartwarming moment. They named him Jackson and promised to never forget him.

When the signs of life finally faded out, his body was delivered to a funeral home in preparation for his burial. Charity made a little white garment to bury him in. Matt and Ryan carried his little casket to the grave that was dug.

They spent their special boy off properly. Charity was grateful that she had not aborted baby Jackson, and her family was able to meet and spend time with him. They were sad to see him go so early and young, but he would not only continue to be her special boy, he would live in their hearts forever.