Vanellope Hope Wilkins, who was born with no breastbone, had a condition known as ectopia cordis—a congenital malformation in which the heart is abnormally located either partially or totally outside of the thorax.
With only a few cases per million births, of which most are stillborn, Vanellope’s parents Dean Wilkins, 43, and Naomi Findlay, 31, of Bulwell, Nottinghamshire, were advised to terminate the pregnancy after the baby’s condition was discovered during a ninth week scan.
In an interview published originally in the Guardian, Naomi recalled the moment when she was told about her baby’s condition. “It was a real shock when the ultrasound showed that her heart was outside her chest and scary because we didn’t know what would happen.”
But termination was never on Naomi’s mind as it was “not something she could do”. “To see, even at nine weeks, a heartbeat – no matter where it was. It was not something I was going to take away. In a way her strength gave me a strength to keep going,” she added.
Ultimately, the two decided against the abortion and only prayed for a miracle to safeguard their baby’s life.
When life gets tough, the tough get going
Even the doctors dealing with Vanellope’s case were not hopeful and had given Vanellope a 10% survival chance.
For the couple, hearing what the doctors had to say about her baby’s chances of life, broke them. “I burst into tears. When we did the research, we just couldn’t physically look because the condition came with so many problems.” Wilkins added: “We still didn’t know what we were looking at when we saw the scan, it looked like a little hamster with a hat on.”
In an Independent report, Dr. Frances Bu’Lock, the consultant pediatric cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital, revealed how Vanellope’s chance of survival looked “remote” at the initial stage.
“I had seen one in fetal life around 20 years ago but that pregnancy was ended,” she said. I also did a quick Google search, as everyone does, more of a literature search; but that didn’t inform me an awful lot because there’s not much to go on and the cases are all very different,” Frances conceded.