A mother and her son are looking forward to another Christmas together almost three years after doctors told her that she should have an abortion.
Sharee McCoy and her son Luka began beating the odds just eight weeks into her pregnancy, when a rare complication was discovered which can be threatening to both the mother and the baby in the womb.
Doctors at SSM Health St Mary’s Hospital told Sharee continuing with her pregnancy could result in a life-threatening rupture or severe bleeding, and directed her to have an abortion.
Just a year earlier, Sharee had lost her first child – a son named Jude – to a congenital heart disease when he was just two months old. Determined to do everything she could to save her baby, she asked if there was any way to continue her pregnancy.
After a few hours of waiting and doctors deliberating she was offered a pioneering first-of-its-kind surgery, but with no guarantee, it would work.
Dr Cristian Campian, the SLU Care Urogynecologist at SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital, told a video documenting Sharee and Luka’s experience that the procedure had never been done before, so he had no blueprint to go with ahead of Sharee’s surgery. He told Sharee there was a 99 percent chance the surgery wouldn’t work.
However, the surgery was a success, and McCoy suffered no further complications until Luka’s premature birth at 31 weeks in March 2017.
During the birth, Sharee suffered massive blood loss and had to be rushed to the hospital’s intensive care unit where she had to have her uterus surgically removed.
Doctors feared Sharee might not make it and decided it was time for Sharee and her son, who was dealing with health issues of his own, to meet one another.
Luka, who was having trouble breathing on his own in the NICU, was able to be weaned off oxygen and then began breathing without assistance for the first time while he was on his mother’s chest.
Chaela Kinney, Luka’s NICU nurse, said: “I didn’t heal Luka, his mom healed Luka, and I think Luka helped to heal Sharee… Being able to witness that, it’s a miracle.”
Two years later, neither Sharee or Luka seem to have suffered any complications from their time in the hospital.
Sharee said “Luka will be three in March and he’s doing great. I just hope this will be inspiring and give people hope”.
