Christmas time all around the world is known as a period for miracles, where people make wishes and say special prayers for specific things. In most cases, the “magic” of Christmas would allow for those prayers and wishes to come true.
Today, Christmas Day 2017, Dr Mark Ragoonanan and his wife Shelly Ramsamooj, of Lange Park, Chaguanas, both have their precious little angel, Isabella Faith, as their own living testimony of such a Christmas miracle.
Isabella, who is now nine months old, would not have been here today if it wasn’t for God’s miracle working power, which was boosted by the fervent prayers of her parents for her survival and a full bill of health.
As a foetus in her mother’s womb at 22 weeks, Isabella was diagnosed with Dolichocephaly – a condition where the head is longer than would be expected relative to its width and also the head’s circumference measuring two weeks behind.
In the second anomaly scan, on December 16, 2016, at 22+3 weeks’ gestation, the foetal skull contour was noted to be irregular.
“T&T is in the middle of a Zika epidemic and the findings are in keeping with a Zika-affected foetus,” the report stated.
This broke the newly-wedded couple’s hearts into pieces.
Ragoonanan said he remembered hearing the saddest screams ever from his wife that day.
“Shelly locked herself in the bathroom and screamed…it was the most painful screams ever. I felt like I was dying. I felt like all my dreams were squashed,” he told the T&T Guardian.
Ragoonanan, a man of tremendous faith in God, was on the brink of losing that faith at that point. But he called upon his spiritual leader, Pastor Winston Cuffie of Miracle Ministries International, to join with him and his wife in prayers for a much needed miracle.
“I remembered scratching off the word ‘Dolichocephaly’ from on the card and just pouring anointed oil over it and praying to God,” Ragoonanan said.
For a second opinion, the young couple did another anomaly scan later that said day at another doctor’s office in Port-of-Spain. The results threw them into further into depression and hopelessness.
“It gave me a jolt in my heart. The foetus’ head was measuring 20 weeks, not 22 weeks…it confirmed abnormalcy,” Ragoonanan said.
In denial, but still hoping for a miracle, the couple left for Miami on December 11, 2016, to shop for baby clothes.
“We were feeling sick inside while buying our baby stuff, our hearts heavy, knowing that our baby’s chances were slim, but we kept praying.”
Upon their return, on December 15, 2016, Ragoonanan got his worst birthday gift ever after another scan on their unborn child.
“The scan showed that the head was now lagging three weeks behind and now diagnosed with Microcephaly…but we kept praying and kept the faith despite our now hopeless state.”
Three days after, the couple returned to the US to get further medical advice at the Miller School of Medicine in Miami. The report was no different.
“We were given several detrimental options, no different to what we were told and given in T&T,” Ragoonanan said.
Upon their return home, the couple’s faith for a miracle began materialising in Ramsamooj’s womb.
“In Miami, I felt as though I was going through the pits of hell…but when we came back home and I woke up the morning, deep within me, I told my husband that my baby is well,” Ramsamooj said.
The couple, now radically moving by faith in God, went to Dr David Nehall, an obstetrician and gynaecologist foetal medicine specialist.
It was there, during the scan, …a miracle!
“Shelly had a high fever and we again prayed with our pastor before we went to Dr Nehall…when she woke up that morning and said our baby is well, we ran to Dr Nehall for further checks…he never saw us before. We had gotten our miracle!” Ragoonanan said.
“The baby’s head measured up as normal…everything was normalised…the overlapping of skull bones showed normal and the smooth brain contour showed up normal.”
According to Neehall’s report, dated December 23, 2016, “there are no obvious anomalies seen today, within the limits of a scan done at this gestational age. The estimated foetal weight today is on the 11th centile, the head circumference on the 14th, the abdominal circumference on the 6th, and the femoral length on the 27th centile. The placenta is posterior and high and the liquor volume is in the normal range.”
Ragoonanan said, “The baby was sucking her finger in the ultra sound…all was well…today, my wife and I have our little miracle baby, alive and healthy, with us celebrating her first Christmas.”
He added, “Despite every ultra-sound and the doctors giving us no hope with this being an “impossible” situation, our faith in Jesus Christ took us through and we knew that he would never forsake us. All glory to God…My first best Merry Christmas ever.”