dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050224/Stacie-Crimm-refuses-chemotherapy-unborn-daughter-Dottie-Mae-live.html

She began to tell Ray of her
growing concerns. 'I'm worried
about this baby,' she said in one
text, according to the
Oklahoman. 'I hope I live long
enough to have this baby,' said
another message. 'Bubba, if
anything happens to me, you
take this child.'
Stacie was no longer with the
father of the baby and would
have raised her daughter as a
single mother if she survived.
At her family's encouragement,
Stacie visited a number of
doctors and in July, a CT scan
revealed that she had head and
neck cancer.
Emotional: The moment Stacie
was able to meet her baby
daughter before she passed
away. Also pictured are her
siblings Ray and Elizabeth
Tiny: Dottie Mae was delivered
four months early by Caesarean
section, weighing just 2lbs 1oz
She had to do what no would-be
mother should have to - choose
between her life and that of her
baby's. It was an easy decision.
Ray told the Oklahoman that his
sister waived the potentially
lifesaving chemotherapy in the
hope that she would eventually
hold a healthy baby in her arms.
Then on August 16, Stacie
collapsed at her home in Ryan,
Oklahoma and was rushed to OU
Medical Center in Oklahoma City.
Doctors said the invasive tumour
had begun wrapping around the
brain stem, the Oklahoman
reported.
Two days later the baby's heart
rate plummeted, then Stacie's
heart stopped. Code Blue was
issued. Doctors and nurses
rushed to her aid and decided a
C-section was the baby's only
chance.
Dottie Mae arrived into the world
weighing less than a third of an
average newborn. She was
swiftly taken to neonatal
intensive care, while her mother
was placed in intensive care in
another building.
'Sister was dying right there. She
was gasping,' Ray told the
Oklahoman. 'The human body
fights death.'
Stacie fought back and managed
to wrestle herself off the
ventilator and sedation after a
few days. 'There was still a lot of
hope at that point,' said Ray's
wife Jennifer.
Loving mother: Dottie Mae was
able to meet her mother before
Stacie died three days later on
September 11
Part of the family: Stacie's
brother Ray Phillips has taken
Dottie Mae into his home with
his four children after the
baby's father left his sister
But the cancer had affected one
of her eyes and destroyed the
muscle behind it,
It had paralysed her throat so
that when she did talk, she was
hard to understand. She had
tumours on her brain. She often
became unconscious and had
not been able to sign Dottie
Mae's birth certificate.
Stacie was too weak to be taken
to her baby, and her baby was
too weak to be brought to her.
'We'd show her pictures and she
would cry and she would want
to hold her baby,' Ray told
NewsOk. 'It was quite the ordeal.
I felt helpless. I wanted to help
her, I wanted to do what I could
for her - we all did - but they had
told us it was impossible for her
to see the child.'
On September 8, Stacie stopped
breathing and once again was
resuscitated. Hospital staff
warned the family that she was
very close to death.
But she had not yet held, kissed
or looked into the blue eyes of
the baby whose life she had
chosen above her own.
Nurse Agi Beo, herself a mother,
could not bear to think of Stacie's
emotional pain and decided to
do something about it.
She worked with nurse Jetsy
Jacob and talked to Neoflight, the
medical centre's neonatal
transport team, about using a
capsule-like ICU to safely move
Dottie Mae to her mother.
Special unit: Dottie Mae had to
be transferred into an ICU
module so she could be taken
from intensive care to her
mother
'I knew all of this was going on
in the background and I didn't
say nothing to her until I knew it
was going to happen because I
didn't want to get her hopes up,'
Ray said.
He asked his sister what she
would would think about seeing
her daughter that day. Stacie's
eyes popped open and she
began looking around to find
her.
Soon the nurses arrived with
Dottie Mae and laid her right on
her mother's chest. The two
stared into each other's eyes for
several minutes.
'Nobody said anything, it got real
quiet,' Ray told NewsOk. 'I told
my sister, "You have done a
beautiful thing". It was the
perfect moment, that's what I
called it.'
Stacie died three days later. Her
funeral was on September 14.
Her obituary on the Dudley
Funeral Homes website reads:
'Dottie Mae was the light of her
life and her greatest
accomplishment. She chose to
give this baby life instead of
taking treatment for herself.'
Dottie Mae now lives with Ray,
his wife Jennifer and their four
children in their Oklahoma City
home
'I think she's a miracle. I just
want to do right by her and do
what Stacie asked,' Jennifer said.

the mother was told WELL BEFORE by the doctors that she could never have kids, and thus she wanted to defy what they said. . . . . . . . and it killed her, oh well!!