Three years ago Hayden Hatfield, a college student at Auburn University in Alabama, had registered as a bone-marrow donor. In 2015 she received a call that she was a match to an anonymous 1 year old child, Skye, who was suffering from a rare form of childhood Leukemia. “I had started to question whether I had a purpose here,” Hayden said. “That phone call gave me a purpose.”
On July 28, 2016 doctors in Alabama extracted some of Hatfield’s bone marrow and the next day in California it was transplanted into baby Skye’s bloodstream. After complications a second bone marrow donation was needed, and finally after a very difficult journey to recovery including chemotherapy and peripheral blood stem cell donations, baby Skye began to see improvement. “If Hayden hadn’t donated her bone marrow, our daughter would not have made it [to] her other donation. She got us to a place where we could survive this,” said Skye’s Father, Todd Savren-McCormick.
On June 9, 2018 Hayden and Skye met for the very first time at Hayden’s wedding to Adrian Ryals. The pure joy of having Skye there for the wedding was enough knowing the difficult journey Skye had been through to get to that day. However, the experience was made even sweeter because Skye was able to walk as Flower Girl ahead of the Bride on that special day carrying a bouquet draped with a locket from Skye and her parents The locket contained a picture of Skye on one side and the words “This heart beats with yours” engraved on the other. “I’ve never been able to describe our bond,” said Hayden. “I’ve never been able to explain it. That was the most perfect way I have ever heard it described.”
Read the Story Here:
A bride gave bone marrow to save a stranger’s baby. The child lived – and was her flower girl.
By: Lindsey Bever, The Washington Post
