Lyndsay and Matthew Brentlinger of Ohio experienced a miracle on Dec. 17, 2016 with the arrival of their newborn twins. Doctors told the couple months before that one of the babies might be stillborn due to a congenital condition.
But babies William and Reagan came into the world with wide-eyed hope. The boy twin, however, did not have a good prognosis even as he defied the doctors' prediction that he would be stillborn.
William had "a bunch of abnormalities," his mother told WGNTV. "The left side of his heart was not functioning to live properly," Lyndsay said.
The Brentlingers waited and tried for long time to get pregnant. But when Lyndsay was 23 weeks along, the ultrasound revealed William's condition.
William looked healthy upon his birth but the truth was he didn't have enough time to live. The reality was one of the Brentlinger twins would die sooner.
A friend of the family decided to give the Brentlingers a Christmas present in a form of a photoshoot with the twins. Mandy Edwards got in touch with professional photographer Lindsey Brown and hoped that she would accept the job, given that it's the busy Christmas season, according to 5 News. Brown fortunately agreed.
"It was extremely bittersweet the entire time I was there," the photographer said. "You would literally NEVER have known something was wrong with sweet Will." Below is her post and her anecdote about the twins' photoshoot, which she shared on Facebook.
William died a week after these pictures were taken, with his mother carrying him in her arms. He lived for 11 days but his dad said that this had been "the happiest 11 days" of their lives.
Thanks to the family's friend and the photographer, they have these cherished moments to look back to. They look forward to showing the photos to Reagan when she is a lot older.
