Krysta Davis was 18 weeks pregnant when she was told that the baby she was carrying had an abnormality. Her to-be-born daughter Rylei Arcadia Diane Lovett was diagnosed with anencephaly, a rare condition in which an infant is missing parts of the brain or skull.
Doctors gave 23-year-old Davis and her boyfriend Derek Lovett the news that Rylei would not live for more than 30 minutes after birth.
Speaking to People magazine, Krysta said that it was definitely "shocking."
Doctors gave Davis two options: induce labour immediately or carry the baby to term and donate the child's organs.
"[The doctor] said babies with anencephaly don't tend to survive birth let alone cord-cutting. There was no outcome where she would be able to survive on her own for very long if at all," she said, adding, "We decided that even if we couldn't bring our daughter home, no mother would have to go through what we were going to go through."
Davis carried Rylei to term, delivering her baby girl on Christmas Eve at 40 weeks and two days.
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However, contrary to what doctors believed, Rylei shocked everyone by surviving for an entire week after her birth.
Davis, Lovett and Rylei spent that time at the hospital together until the baby passed away on New Year's Eve.
Krysta said, "It was absolutely amazing going from knowing we were maybe gonna get 30 minutes with her at most to having a week with her was more than we could have ever expected or imagined."
Davis notes that Rylei hadn't cried at all during her week of life. But on her final day, she'd let out a small cry when her oxygen became too low.
After Rylei died, her heart valves were given to two children and her lungs were given to a research hospital.