After a week in a coma following an emergency C-section, doctors had given up hope that Shelly Cawley would ever wake up again. Then her baby started crying…
It was last September when Cawley, from North Carolina, went into labor and had to undergo an emergency C-section due to complication. “I clearly remember lying on the stretcher to take me back to the operating room, and I was crying. I was telling the doctors I was scared that I wasn’t going to wake up from my surgery,” the new mum told a local TV station later.
Her fear almost came true. Though doctors delivered a healthy baby girl, a blood clot broke loose during surgery and sent Cawley into a coma. Hours later, she still hadn’t woken up. “The doctors had done all they could, and it was clear they absolutely thought they were losing her at this point,” her husband added.
But a nurse at the hospital had a final idea – one that would prove a life saver.
“We’re a big proponent of skin-to-skin contact”, nurse Ashley Manus told People magazine in a later interview about the miracle recovery. “We believe it has great benefits for the mom and the baby, and we just thought it can’t hurt, might as well give it a try. I was hoping somewhere deep down Shelly was still there and could feel her baby, hear her baby, and her mother’s instincts would come out and she would realize that this is where she needed to be.’”
At first the baby was so comfortable on her mother’s chest, she fell asleep, but with some prodding, let out a loud cry. Doctor’s reported a sudden spike in Cawley’s vitals when the sound of baby Rylan’s cry filled the room.
Her fight wasn’t over, but Shelly’s husband has no doubt what made her come back to them. “Rylan cried and she knew she had to stay with us.”
Last week Rylan celebrated her 1st birthday – with her mum there to blow out the candle with her.
The things that love can do!
