Watching their 1-year-old daughter Bella Rae’s face light up on her 1st birthday, Sydney Swans turned Geelong Cats star Gary Rohan and his wife Amie were overwhelmed with emotion.
Indeed, Bella’s big day this year as it will be every year was a time of both celebration and remembrance a day that will forever serve as a reminder of the true meaning of love and courage.
On April 12, 2018, Amie and Gary welcomed blue-eyed Bella into the world, only to farewell her identical twin sister, Willow Nevaeh, just five hours after the birth.
Amie and Gary’s “beautiful little angel” taught the young couple a great deal in her short time on this earth. And Amie, 25, and Gary, 27, now know one thing for certain – they will always be grateful for having known brave baby Willow.
“She was a little fighter, that’s for sure,” reflects Gary. “She taught us to face all challenges head-on.”
“Because of Willow, we value every second of life,” agrees Amie, her voice breaking. “She was a breath of fresh air for every minute she was here the most beautiful wispy willow, blowing in the breeze for the most precious time.”
To former high-school sweethearts Amie and Gary, married in a Hamilton Island ceremony in 2016, starting a family as soon as they could was certainly part of the plan.
“Gary and I have known each other our whole lives,” says Amie. “We’re both from quite big families and have always loved kids.
“We both thought, ‘When it happens, it happens. It’s just meant to be’. I actually found out I was pregnant the week of the elimination final between the Geelong Cats and the Sydney Swans in Melbourne. I didn’t know if I should tell Gary because he had such a big week, but he guessed it anyway.
“We’ve always been in sync with each other. We’d been through a lot with the highs and lows of football and injuries, and this news was just so exciting. Gary was over the moon.”
In fact, the pair were even more elated when, just seven weeks into the pregnancy, they discovered they were expecting not one, but two babies.
“I started bawling with happiness during the ultrasound,” recalls Amie with a smile. “They both had the strongest little heartbeats I’d ever heard. It was just the most incredible and overwhelming day for us.”
However, unbeknown to Amie and Gary, Willow’s fight had already begun. The tiny battler, dubbed ‘Twin B’ by her parents, had anencephaly – a fatal and incurable neural tube defect. Almost all babies with anencephaly lose their fight for life before birth or within a few hours or days following birth.
For Amie and Gary, an ultrasound at almost 12 weeks revealed the devastating diagnosis.
“We knew they were identical from our first scan, but we didn’t know whether we were having boys or girls – something we chose not to find out until they were born,” says Amie.
“At our second scan, a senior doctor was called while we were asked to wait. Gary was being so strong and comforting, trying to reassure me, as he always has done – and we’ve done that for each other through everything we’ve been through.”
Twenty agonising minutes later, the couple received the tragic news.
“The senior doctor came in and we were told that Twin B had been diagnosed with this condition,” says Amie. “I can remember saying, ‘Oh, OK, what does this mean? Can we have surgery as soon as they’re born, or is there something we can do now?’.
“It was then that the doctor looked at me and said, ‘I’m so sorry, but these babies are not compatible with life’ and handed me a box of tissues,” says Amie, her eyes filling with tears.
“She was broken about it as well. She had the hardest job in the world and I’ll never forget her name – it was Mia – because she was so beautiful about it. Gary and I both sat there and cried.”
Referred to a specialist team at Sydney’s Royal Hospital for Women, the couple made the decision to carry Willow to full-term – to give her twin the greatest chance of survival.
“I also didn’t want Bella to spend her whole life wondering what could have been, wondering about that missing part of her,” says Amie. “I wanted her to grow up knowing that she did have a twin, and now she will always have photos of Willow.”
Throughout the pregnancy, Amie and Gary tried to remain positive, leaning on each other and their close-knit circle of family and friends for love
and support.
“It was really hard, but the more I talked about it, the easier it did become,” says Amie.
“We couldn’t hide under a rock for nine months – we had to
face it head on.”
Adds Gary: “We relied on each other a lot to talk through everything. It definitely made our connection even closer and that got us through. Amie is one of the strongest people I know what she had to go through to carry Willow all the way. She was incredible.”
At 34 weeks gestation, with Gary by her side, Amie gave birth by caesarean section to 1.78kg Bella and 1.29kg Willow.
As Gary says quietly: “It was the most bittersweet day of our lives.”
“Bella came out first and then we held our breath and hoped that Willow would still be with us,” he recalls. “Bella was taken to the NICU [Neonatal Intensive Care Unit] downstairs and Willow stayed with us upstairs. I felt absolutely torn apart.
“I wanted to go and see Bella, and I obviously also wanted to stay with Willow, because I didn’t know how long we had with her. But the hospital was amazing and gave us time as the four of us together. I will cherish that for the rest of my life.”
It was a day, too, in which the first-time parents saw true beauty.
“Willow was just perfect, so peaceful as she held onto my little finger,” says Amie.
“I’ve lost a lot of people close to me over my life so far,” she continues, “but I think it’s different when you lose a part of you.
“At the time, Gary and I looked at each other and said ‘Willow has given us the strength to do anything in our life. Nothing will be too hard.’”
Indeed, amid the sadness, the couple have made the decision to be happy – for themselves and, of course, for their “cake-loving” ray of sunshine, Bella Rae.
“We do wonder if Bella’s missing her little sidekick, her little bestie, but she has pulled us through and we will always tell her about Willow,” says Amie.
“Bella really is the dreamboat baby who is growing into the most loving little character – a little girl who just wants to hug and love the living daylights out of everyone she meets. I think to myself, ‘There’s a reason you’re like this – because you have all this love to give’.
She is so knowing – she is such a special soul and we love her so very much.”
Perhaps one day, when the time is right, the couple will become parents again. But
not just yet.
“I think I still need to do a little bit more healing,” says Amie. “It’s been a year of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, but Willow will always be with us – she will always be around us. We will acknowledge her on her birthday and every day.”
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