After surviving a heart transplant and a kidney transplant, a Mississippi woman recently gave birth baby she thought she might never have.
According to Fox News, 28-year-old Brooke Lillie of Hattiesburg, Miss., welcomed a daughter named Lauren last June.
“I have had a couple of miscarriages in the past, and so it was kind of hard for me to get excited in the beginning,” she told the outlet. “I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”
When she was just a toddler, Lillie was diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy. This is a condition where the “heart muscle is stiff or scarred, or both,” per the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Due to the condition, she received a heart transplant when she was a little over 1 year old.
“On Dec. 11, 1996, I received my heart transplant. And on that day, which was the worst day of her life, my donor’s mother made the decision to save not only my life, but seven other lives as well by making her son an organ donor,” said Lillie, according to Forrest Health.
Forrest said that Lille then found herself battling Chronic Kidney Disease by the time she was in her 20s. She needed another transplant, this time a kidney.
“Anti-rejection drugs taken throughout her life had damaged her kidneys and left her with chronic renal failure,” Forrest explained. Lillie started dialysis but in 2019, she found a kidney donor – her husband, Adam.
“He ended up being literally, quite literally, my perfect match. Not only [as] a husband,” she said, according to Fox.
While the couple successfully got through the transplant, they had another challenge. Doctors warned Lillie that any pregnancy she had would be high risk
“It was pretty discouraging because my transplant team was not really on board with the idea of me having a baby,” she said. “But, I just prayed that God would give me a family one way or the other.”
Lillie added that faith was a priority for the couple as they embarked on their journey to become parents.
“I never gave up praying. I prayed every day, and I just knew in my heart that I was going to be a mom,” she said.