The moment of birth is one of the most important and happiest moments in a parent’s life, but for Kate and David Ogg of Australia, it was a jarring, dreadful experience.
Shortly after Kate gave birth to twins, the doctors approached her and told her that only one of them had survived the birth, while the other, Jamie, who was born in the 27th week of his life, died. At the request of the mother, the nurse handed her her dead son, so she could say her farewell.
However, motivated by an inexplainable innate intuition, rather than say her good-byes, Kate began to speak to her dead son, while caressing his fingers. For two whole hours, little Jamie lay on his mother’s body while she hugged him and told him words of affection and love. “Your twin sister Emily is doing fine,” Kate whispered in Jamie’s ear, “We want you with us.”
The unbelievable suddenly happened, and little Jamie began breathing out loud. “I was really confused. I thought to myself, ‘Holy G-d, what is going on here?” Kate recalls emotionally, “but the doctors didn’t give me much hope. They insisted that it was just reflexes, and it couldn’t be that the child was alive.”
Despite the pessimistic forecasts, and against all odds — a short time later, Jamie opened his eyes, and wrapped his fingers tightly around his mother’s finger, pulling it into his mouth and beginning to suck it. Needless to say, no one had expected this marvelous sight. Great excitement gripped the people standing around. All the doctors who were in the room at the time were shocked, and said that it was a real medical miracle.
The “dead” baby
When asked what made her react as she did immediately after she was informed that her son was dead, Kate Ogg replies: “I had carried this child in my womb for more than six months, so my response was obvious. As a mother I wanted to hold him, to meet him. I wanted him to know who his parents were, and to know that we loved him before he died.”
The Oggs added: “When he opened his eyes, we thought, ‘What luck, we got to see the color of his eyes before he died.’ Now, we feel really lucky.”
