Baby Named Life To Be Buried With Mom Who Turned Down Chemo To Save Her

WYOMING, MI — A tiny premature baby named Life, who died at only 14 days old this week, will be buried at the feet of her mother, who gave up her own life to save her unborn child. Carrie DeKlyen learned she was pregnant not long after she was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor, but the Wyoming, Michigan, mother of five refused chemotherapy and experimental treatments so the baby’s life might be spared.

Life Lynn DeKlyen had been in her mother’s womb only about 24 weeks when she was born on Sept. 6, weighing only 1 pound 4 ounces. Her mother, who had been unconscious and on life support during the final weeks of her pregnancy, died three days after giving birth to her sixth child. Life succumbed Wednesday, too tiny to survive.

During those 14 days, little Life and her mother’s sacrifice inspired, uplifted and then saddened the world.

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Life’s family tracked her progress on the Cure 4 Carrie Facebook page. She was terrifyingly small, but doctors at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor held out hope. The day of her mother’s funeral, her blood oxygen saturation levels crashed, and she almost died. They rebounded when her father, Nick, held her.

The roller coaster continued. Her little heart stopped at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday. Life was too tiny, too fragile and had simply needed more time in her mother’s womb.

The family said on Facebook they planned open Carrie’s grave at Georgetown Cemetery in Jenison, Michigan, on Friday and bury Life with her mother.

“The Bible says that it rains on the just and the unjust,” DeKlyen told The Detroit News. “There are just things you can’t explain. I wish I had the answer as to why my wife died and my daughter died. Regardless of what happened, I still chose to follow God and do it his way. When I get to heaven one day, I will ask why. I know he has a reason for everything.”

But he may already have the answer. It came in a dream his wife had shortly after her diagnosis. She was rocking her newborn daughter.

“She thought the Lord gave her that dream as a sign that she was going to be alive to rock her daughter,” DeKlyen told the Free Press. “Now that Life’s passed away, I picture my wife in heaven with her. Now the dream makes sense. It wasn’t Carrie rocking her daughter on Earth. She was rocking her daughter in heaven. It gives me peace.”

This October 2013 photo shows Carrie and Nick DeKlyen in happier days, before an aggressive brain tumor took Carrie’s life. Treatment would have ended her pregnancy, so she sacrificed her life so her unborn child might live. The baby, Life Lynn, died Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017, after a short, 14-day life. (Michelle Werkema/Courtesy of Sonya Nelson via Associated Press)