A grandma battling cancer was given a beautiful pick-me-up when her grandbaby was brought home from the NICU to surprise her.
Kamassa Herrmann, from Warner Robins, Georgia, and her mom, Estella, 70, experienced a whirlwind of emotions over the months leading up to Kamassa giving birth to her son.
During the end of her second trimester, she started experiencing complications, while Estella was diagnosed with breast cancer, which prompted Kamassa and her sister to jump in as “cheerleaders.”
Estella is an immigrant and a veteran, Kamassa said, and so she knew her mom had spent decades fighting to make the best life for herself and her family.
Around Halloween, Kamassa was diagnosed with preeclampsia, which meant she would need to be hospitalized for a month and monitored until she could be induced.
This changed, however, when she had to undergo an early C-section, on November 14, and her son, Victor, was born prematurely and taken to the NICU.
The days and weeks that followed were tough, but her mom, despite her own fight, was always by her side and available to take her daughter to visit Victor, who got to know his grandmother’s voice.
When Kamassa and her husband received the news that Victor had passed the NICU tests and could be brought home from the NICU for Christmas, they decided to surprise Estella, who was starting to feel down from the impact of her treatment.
On December 24, the couple casually walked into their home, where Kamassa placed the car seat containing her son on Estella’s lap, causing the 70-year-old to beam with happiness.
She said: “The cancer treatments were doing a number on her, and she’d been pretty down because of it, and I love to spring random surprises on her, so this felt like a pretty good one.
“I knew she would be excited, but I wasn’t expecting her to be that excited.
“She loves him so much and realizing he was home and safe and healthy lifted her spirits so much, it was absolutely worth it.
“Once she realized we had planned the whole thing she pretended to be offended that we had kept her in the dark, but she had a grandbaby to love on, so we were forgiven pretty much immediately.”
