Frankielen da Silva Zampoli Padilha was only nine weeks pregnant with twins when a pounding headache radically changed the future of her family forever.
Nine weeks is a common period for women to suffer a miscarriage—but not Frankielen.
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She frantically called her husband Muriel on his way to work and begged him to come home as soon as possible.
“She said her head was killing her. I told her to take a tablet. But she said there was a sharp pain at the back of her neck and it was so strong she felt she was going to collapse.”
When he returned home to a crying, shaking, dizzy, vomiting, Frankielen, Muriel rushed his wife to the hospital.
The 21-year-old knew she was suffering from more than just a headache.
“As I drove her to hospital, she said, ‘I want you to be prepared to accept this because I will be staying there, I won’t be coming home.’”
Muriel said those were his wife’s final words to him. She had a stroke after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. The busted vein caused severe bleeding in the brain, leaving the young mother brain dead. The unborn babies were expected to die
“They said as soon as their little hearts stopped beating, they would turn off the gadgets and I would be able to bury my wife.”
But the twins’ hearts continued to beat inside their mother’s womb.
That’s when doctors made the ground-breaking decision to try and save the nine-week-old embryos.
Head of the Neurological ICU at Nosso Senhora do Rocio hospital in Campo Largo, South Brazil, Dr. Dalton Rivabem, explained:
“Frankielen’s organs were all intact and working as if she was still with us. We took the decision to keep her alive to save her unborn children. And every day we watched them grow normally.”
In February of this year, after doctors managed to successfully keep Frankielen on life support for 123 days, her twins were delivered by c-section at seven months.
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Muriel and his family welcomed his daughter, 3-pound Ana Vitoria, and her twin brother, 2.8 pound Asaph.
The twins spent three months in the neonatal intensive care unit after making their miraculous grand entrance into the world.
Following the twins’ birth, Frankielen’s mother had nothing but praise for her late daughter:
“I’m so proud of my daughter. It’s been hard losing her but she was a warrior right until the end, protecting her beautiful children and giving them life until the day she finally died.”
The twins were able to join their father and big sister, 2-year-old Isa Beatriz, at home after making history inside of their mama’s womb.
What an incredible miracle these babies are. Praise God for the peace he’s brought to the family through the arrival of Ana Vitoria and Asaph.
