Florida Catholic | ‘Baby Miracle’ is a blessing

‘Baby Miracle’ is a blessing

JANET SHELTON | FLORIDA CATHOLIC ST. PETERSBURG BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 07.18.08

Courtesy Photo
Miracle Nanai after her surgeries in the United States.

ST. PETERSBURG | For Kristin Taylor, the real miracle of “Baby Miracle” is not that she is alive, but that she brought out a love for life in so many people.

The little girl named Tina, born with a twisted face and the open spine, has left Florida and is back in Samoa, where she first made headlines after her birth. She cannot hear. She cannot see. A feeding tube provides nourishment. But Baby Miracle is alive and she is growing, and that is far different from what was expected in the 10-month-old’s first weeks of life.

Mikaele and Sefulu Nanai received crushing news after their daughter was born Sept. 1, 2007. The newborn had profound deformities – a cleft palate and spina bifida. Her face was misshapen and her tiny mouth so deformed she couldn’t suckle. She would not likely live through the night.

For three heartbreaking days, Tina’s parents heard their daughter’s cries through the hospital walls that separated her from her mother.

“When we spoke to the doctors, they didn’t give us any hope,” her father, Mikaele Nanai, said in a television interview shortly after arriving in the United States. “I could hear her crying and I thought, ‘My baby daughter wants to live.’”

Courtesy Photo
In Florida, Kristin Taylor, center, exercises Miracle Nanai’’s arms with the child’s parents, Sefulu, left, and Mikaele.

On the third day, he walked into the nursery to say goodbye. As he touched his daughter’s mouth, she tried to suck on his finger. The stunned father left the hospital, bought formula, poured it into a syringe and, when the nurses weren’t looking, slipped drops of milk into Tina’s mouth.

When the baby did not die, hospital staffers became suspicious. Mom and daughter were discharged and the family returned to a less-than-welcoming village. Taylor, a singer and St. Stephen parishioner who does medical mission work in Samoa, learned about the family through a newspaper report and on the Internet.

“The rumor was that the baby was half-human, half-pig. They were outcasts,” Taylor said. “Just that title (half-human, half-pig) enraged me. … I have a child with spina bifida. I felt so sorry for the parents.”

Through the ministry she founded, THORN Ministries, which stands for Thankfully Helping Others’ Real Needs, Taylor had been working to bring a child with a brain tumor from Samoa to the United States for surgery, but the child died. Taylor went to Samoa to attend the funeral and decided to meet with Tina’s parents. By this time, Tina was becoming known as “Baby Miracle.”

She was about to do more to live up to the name.

Surgery for the child who had died of the brain tumor had been arranged by Taylor through Child Foundation Charity in Miami. The not-for-profit organization’s board comprises doctors and business people who donate medical services and address some of the costs of surgery for children who need major, mostly reconstructive, surgery.

Taylor e-mailed her contact at the organization, Tina Garner, to tell her about the death of the first child. She mentioned baby Tina in the message, and Garner responded with an offer of help. John Raghed, chief of neurosurgery at Miami Children’s Hospital, and Anthony Wolfe, the chief of surgery at Miami Children’s, would perform the surgery without charge. Child Foundation also offered to help with the fundraising.

“(The doctors) do this because of their love for children … and they believe no child should have to do without the medical treatment they deserve,” Garner said. “Whatever the situation is … they all deserve the opportunity to have a normal life.”

The donated surgical skills were a huge boost, but Taylor still had major bills to cover. First, she had to secure airfare for the baby, her parents, an interpreter and the baby’s Samoan doctor, who was needed because of Tina’s fragile health.

The publicity the baby generated brought in donations from people in Samoa, the United States and beyond. Money came in from New Zealand, whose residents learned of the story after a woman there tried unsuccessfully to bring Tina to that country. A doctor who owns a McDonald’s in Samoa held a fundraiser to pay the group’s airfares. The Samoan community in south Florida put together a performance fundraiser, bringing in $30,000.

In the United States, doctors at Miami Children’s closed the hole in Tina’s back. They repaired the cleft palate, reshaped her face and worked on her legs.

“(They’re) miracle men,” Garner said. “They really are.”

The surgeons could not address all of Tina’s problems. She is blind and deaf. She receives her nutrition through a feeding tube and still has a hole in the top of her head. Still, seven surgeries later, the little girl has returned to her country, where the family has moved from outcasts to celebrity status. They were welcomed home with cheers.

Taylor says Tina is a baby with a powerful pro-life story. Because of her, countless people looked into their souls, drew on their faith and responded to a family in pain. Because of her, a doctor will travel to Samoa to teach other surgeons how to perform the operations that saved her life – all in the hope that other babies will benefit.

In a story of gains, there is one loss for Baby Miracle: her first name. She is now legally named Miracletinajulieamemarymikaele Nanai. Just “Miracle” works.

“Her name is longer than her body,” Taylor said.

Not everyone likes Miracle’s story. Taylor said people question why so many financial resources – the hospital bill alone was half a million dollars – were dedicated to a child whose life will never be close to normal.

It was simply the right thing to do, Taylor explained, so God made it happen. On the day the Tampa woman decided to bring Baby Miracle to the United States for care, she was sitting in Samoa with just $200 in her pocket. “I just knew God had put it on my heart,” she said, and after that Taylor found miracles every step of the way.

If only more people could see how they can be used to help God help others, she said.

“People have got to stop thinking that someone else is going to do what God is asking them to do,” she said. “Even if you don’t have the capabilities or the financial means, you just have to do it.

“Faith is pretty much walking into the dark and knowing God is on the other side.”

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