This story began in Japan, where Rubia Ferreira and Tyler Campbell met and fell in love. Tyler works as a military engineer in the Marine Corps and was not planning to return to the United States in the near future.
However, last year they found out they were going to become parents in February 2018 and decided to visit Tyler’s family in America before then. The couple then planned to return to Japan to get married here after the birth of their daughter.
A few weeks before the flight to the United States, Rubia met with her doctor, who confirmed that everything was fine with the child and that the expectant mother had no contraindications for a long flight.
But after landing in Alabama, Rubia felt a sharp pain in his stomach.
At the hospital, she was diagnosed with HELLP syndrome, a dangerous liver condition for pregnant women that threatens the child’s life. Doctors insisted on an emergency C-section.
A daughter named Kelin was born on November 8, 2017 at the 25th week of pregnancy.
Its weight was only about 400 grams and its height did not exceed 18 centimeters. The return to Japan had to be canceled: Kelin had to spend several months in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Rubia and Tyler postponed their wedding plans until better times, until one day they saw a video on the Internet of the ceremony of another couple who got married right at the hospital. They liked the idea.
The hospital also made a move: The lovers were allowed to hold the ceremony right in their daughter’s room, although Rubia and Tyler were hoping for a chapel at the clinic at best.
The necessary preparations took two weeks. Finally, on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2018, the neonatologist caring for Kelin led Rubia down the hospital hallway to her fiancé.
“At that point, I forgot we were in the hospital,” Tyler later said. The priest performed the ceremony right above their daughter’s incubator.
Now they can only wait for Kelin to become strong enough to congratulate her parents on their wedding.
