Photo: Courtesy Priscilla Maldonado Gray
Less than two months after he was finallyreleased from the hospital, Ja’bari Gray, who wasborn without skin on most of his body, celebrated his first birthday.
After nearly a year in the hospital and countless skin grafts, Ja’bari was released from the hospital in November.
Maldonado, shared the happy news on a GoFundMe campaign that has since been deactivated, noting that while her son would still need additional surgeries, he was improving thanks to lab-grown skin that doctors grafted onto his body at Texas Children’s Hospital.
Ja’bari Gray and family.
Ja’bari Gray.Courtesy Priscilla Maldonado Gray
Ja’bari Gray birthday party.Courtesy Priscilla Maldonado Gray
“I’m overwhelmed with happiness,” Maldonado, 25, toldTodayat the time. “Everything is going fine. It’s working out a lot better than I expected.”
GoFundMe
Maldonado was only able to start holding her son andgiving him kissesin October.
“It was heartwarming because he was crying when he was laying down, but as soon as I picked him up and had the skin-to-skin contact and put him on my chest, he just stopped crying,” she toldABC 13.
Ja’bari — whose name aptly means “fighter and warrior” — came into the world on Jan. 1 “completely silent,” Maldonado previously told theSan Antonio Express-News, a shock compared to the births of her first two children.
The child tested normally throughout her pregnancy until her 37-week ultrasound, which showed that his heart rate had dropped and he wasn’t gaining weight. Doctors immediately performed an emergency C-section on Jan. 1, and with only skin on his head, face and parts of his legs and arms, doctors didn’t expect Gray to survive.
Priscilla Maldonado/GoFundMe
But Maldonado refused to “pull the plug” and pushed for his continued medical care. Doctors arestill unsure whyGray was born without skin.
“If it wasn’t his purpose to be here, he would have been gone from birth or even before birth, so he does have a purpose in this world and we never know what it is until the future,” Maldonado previously told ABC 13.
source: people.com
