TRIGGER WARNING: This post contains information about stillbirth and infant loss, which may be triggering to some.
Rachel Woolsey was training to become an ultrasound technician when she became pregnant, which meant she was in the unique position of being able to scan her own baby and see him grow. That is part of the reason why she never expected to hear that he not only had complications but also that they were so severe they were “incompatible with life.” The mom has gone viral on TikTok for sharing her story, including why she chose to carry the baby to term despite knowing she likely wouldn't be bringing him home.
More than 3.8 million people have watched the mom as she explained what happened several years ago when she was pregnant with her son, Zachary.
AS she explained in the video, she was so excited when she found out she was pregnant, and as an ultrasound technician student at the time, she got to scan her baby whenever she wanted.
“Heading to my 12 week app, I was excited for my husband to finally see him,” she recalled.
But when they got there, they were “blindsided.”
Their doctors told them their son had “many defects making him ‘incompatible with life,’” she wrote.
Every doctor they spoke with “pushed me to abort,” she wrote, “and to just ‘try again.’” But she knew that wasn't what she wanted.
“I was treated so poorly from everyone in the medical field when I chose LIFE,” she added.
Woolsey knew her baby was a “fighter” — “so I owed it to him to fight back.”
The mom “clung to her faith and trusted God had a plan,” she wrote.
Carrying her baby to term came with its own complications — for one, strangers would come up and congratulate Woolsey on her pregnancy, with no clue that she “wouldn’t be able to take my baby home,” she explained.
Zachary was born on February 19, 2019, she wrote in another video. And in a third video, the mom shared that her son was born alive and able to survive 18 hours before he died, proving doctors wrong every step of the way.
"There's too much brain exposed," she was told after that 12-week scan. But they still made it to the second trimester.
Then, they were told "There's also a hole in his heart, you will be delivering a stillborn." But Zachary was born alive.
Finally, she was told, "Once the cord is cut, he will pass right away." But little Zachary had his own plans and was able to spend nearly a full day with his mom and dad.
“Doctors witnessed the IMPOSSIBLE. A baby that shouldn’t of made it past the second trimester survived 18 hours of LIFE!” she wrote.
Woolsey’s story touched so many people online.
“I’d rather hold my baby for two seconds than never at all,” wrote one commenter. “Your story is beautiful! Thanks for sharing!”
“My daughter was diagnosed with Trisomy 18 and I chose life and I was able to see her eyes open and hear her cry before she passed,” another commenter shared.
“Same mama!” someone else wrote. “My first doctor acted annoyed at every appointment. We chose life for our girl and she didn’t make it either but I don’t regret it.”
A few commenters expressed some concerns.
“So despite many medical professionals explaining it, you chose to ignore it?” one person asked. “Yikes.”
“I could never carry a child to term if they’d only live a couple of days to couple weeks and know only pain personally,” someone else commented.
“Not trying to be rude in any way but just wondering how do you prepare for a baby that won’t be coming home? Do you buy minimal supplies or none at all? Or everything?” another commenter wrote.
In a follow-up video, the mom explained why she chose to keep carrying Zachary — even when it was clear he would never live for long, if at all.
“The number one thing being ‘what if’” she said in the video from August 2. “'What if' would haunt me for the rest of my life. What if the doctors were wrong? What if surgery could’ve fixed him? What if it wasn’t as bad as they thought?”
Her second reason? “I didn’t want to play God.”
As she explained, “God brought him into this life. He would be the one to decide when to go back home.”
She also thought that even if Zachary didn’t make it, they could donate his organs to other children in need.
“Even if I didn’t get to take my baby home, the fact that that was on the table, that he’d be able to donate his organs and save other babies or childrens’ lives and save a parent from having to have those feelings that we felt leaving the hospital without their kid. It would be worth it,” she added.
Her final reason to go through with the pregnancy was “science and research.”
In a video from April 19, Woolsey explained that although there were several medical complications with Zachary — the “major” issue was that his brain was growing outside his skull.
“It was untreatable, unfixable,” she said. His intestines also grew outside his stomach, but that was treatable.
“Amniotic band syndrome caused him to have a deformed hand and clubbed foot,” she said. “But the main thing was that his skull bones didn’t fuse together, causing his brain to be exposed.”
Knowing all of this, the parents still chose to continue with the pregnancy, and Woolsey explained that they did this with the hopes of helping the medical community.
“If every parent that had the same diagnosis that Zachary had terminated his life, how are they gonna learn from it? How are they going to figure out why this is happening or how to prevent it? The growth of what it looks like from when they diagnose it at 12 weeks to a full-term baby — they have no research if every baby is terminated,” she explained.
She told viewers that she asked her doctors if her son would feel any pain — and she was assured he wouldn’t.
Thankfully, this story has a happy ending. A year to the day later, Woolsey had her rainbow baby — a daughter — named Bryn. And in her video from September 28, she shared that a producer saw their story and has decided to write a movie based on their experience.
Although Zachary survived less than a day, the connection her children have is certainly a lasting one.
“They share the same birthday” the mom wrote in the captions of a video. “Do you believe in God yet?"
