A boy with special needs defied doctors’ predictions by not only living past the few hours or days they gave him to live but also knowing when to blow his mom and dad kisses, warming hearts on social media.
When Cheyenne Mellow, 33, from Provo, Utah, was pregnant, a routine scan showed that her son, Peter, had multiple brain defects.
According to Cheyenne, doctors explained that the severity of Peter’s defects meant that he would not be compatible with life outside of the womb and that if he did survive, he would be severely disabled with very low cognitive functions.
Cheyenne said that she prepared for the inevitable loss of her son and was told by doctors, she said, that the best the Mellor family could hope for would be a few days with Peter after his birth before he would pass.
But after giving birth and taking Peter to hospice care 18 hours later, Cheyenne was amazed when her son started to defy predictions.
Hours turned into days, days to weeks, weeks to months, with Peter receiving his official diagnosis of TUBa1a, an extremely rare genetic mutation, at four months old.
Due to doctors’ warnings, the Mellor family had not expected Peter to have any communicative skills, but they started to notice he enjoyed making eye contact and reacting to make people laugh.
Then, one day, as his parents blew him kisses, a 10-month-old Peter started to blow them back.
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Cheyenne couldn’t believe what she was watching, and she quickly grabbed her cellphone to record the wholesome moment.
Cheyenne said: “My husband and I were both at home with him, and he was enjoying all the attention.
“He had smacked his lips a couple of days prior, but this was one of the first times it was obvious he was giving kisses.
“In this specific video, he was giving kisses to his daddy, who is and always has been his favorite person in the world.
“Seeing how Peter looks at his dad is enough to make anyone cry happy tears, but then add an intentional kiss and your day or week is made.
“There are few words that can describe the feeling adequately.
“The closest adjectives I can think of are ecstatic, overjoyed, fortunate, undeserving, loved.”