When Charlotte Youds was 13 weeks pregnant, her doctors discovered that one of her identical twins wasn’t experiencing proper head development.
After further investigation, doctors warned Youds that it was unlikely for this baby to survive birth. The child’s brain wasn’t developing correctly – a huge portion of it was missing already – and she would likely need assistance breathing for as long as she lived.
Because Charlotte and her partner, Will, wanted to give their unborn daughter a chance to live, they forced themselves to go through all the motions of preparing for her birth.
“The journey has been very tough,” Charlotte confessed. “It was horrific when they told us that our baby’s brain was missing and there’s no way that she was going to live. It was hard to buy baby clothes, and prepare for birth.”
But ultimately, both twins were born.
Sophia was, thankfully, in good health.
Aniyah was immediately diagnosed with encephalocele, a birth defect that causes a baby’s brain to develop in a sac outside of the skull. Her doctors immediately worked to remove the protrusion that had developed outside of her skull, but they repeated their earlier sentiments: There was a very low chance that Aniyah would survive.
After surgery, the doctors gave the family a room to be together and have privacy as Aniyah passed without the support of a ventilator.
“We were both broken. They unplugged all the machines and put her in our arms to say goodbye,” Charlotte recalled. “We talked to [Aniyah] and promised her that we would always look after her if she just fought for us.”
Doctors returned periodically to check in with them, but Charlotte and Will refused to lose hope.
And as each hour passed, Aniyah persisted and clung to life.
“After around an hour she was still with us and doctors kept coming in to check what was going on and looked shocked that she was still alive,” Charlotte said. “And then from there she just turned around and got strong and stronger, she came home a week after the surgery.
“Now Aniyah is doing a lot better than anyone could ever have predicted.”
The family is now together at home. Doctors are still uncertain about Aniyah’s future, but are doing the best they can to support her and her family as time passes.
