Have you ever thought you saw
your guardian Angel or Avila?
Rico joins us now with a
story that's very powerful.
It's a vision captured in a photograph.
Good morning, happy. Hey,
good morning, Renee. So
here's a story.
I promise we'll pull at the
heartstrings, but in a good way.
Now, you may have seen this
particular photo in your feed recently.
It's gone viral, opening a conversation
about the healing and reluctant hope
that come after losing a child,
you might see a picture of loss,
a baby girl gazing.
Where her twin brother should be.
But Heather Bowman thinks her
daughter sees something else.
Her guardian Angel is right there with her.
Romans waited her whole life
for those tears because she shed
so many of her own to get here.
A loss is a loss and you don't ever
get over it. You just get through it
with help from friends, family
and photographer Jessica Young.
But I definitely wanted to do something.
I nowhere near what she's gone through,
but I had a loss as well.
So I understand a loss is a loss, right?
I understand the need to
have something to visually.
Remind you that that baby existed.
This is my son buchanans,
like these tattoos.
And this is my daughter Leonov.
Tiny feet that never got a chance to grow
their initials I added to their footprints.
Bowman conceived and lost her first
set of twins shortly after she started
working with a fertility specialist
in her late 30s. She turned to IVF
twins on both sides of my family.
So I always thought, weirdly,
innately, that it would be me.
I was again pregnant with twins,
but from there, hers is an.
Unlikely story. She'd call her
son James and her daughter Letty.
A series of rare complications,
including a uterus half its normal size,
meant a tough go for all three.
The other doctors had suggested
I reduce the baby, and they wanted me to
reduce my daughter because she was the
one that was the slower one to develop.
Reduce the baby is basically
abort the baby. And I.
It goes against everything I stand for.
She wanted to give both babies a
fighting chance. Until the appointment.
The Sonographer was doing the
ultrasound and she did my daughters.
It's like, ohh, heartbeats.
Great. And then she didn't
say anything about my sons.
And I said, well, what?
What was my son?
He didn't tell me that.
And she's like, I'm sorry,
but there's no heartbeat.
And I said, but what?
There wasn't enough blood
flow for both of them.
James wouldn't survive, but somehow.
Letty was getting stronger.
They can't let this overcome me
because this could affect my daughter.
I had her to to bring into this
world and make sure she got here.
She got here February 12th, 5 pounds, 11 oz.
Bowman delivered James the same night
that I think almost was better
because it still felt like he
was a part of US and that he was,
you know, he gave his life to
help his sister get here. So.
I don't know how how you,
you know, go through all that
and still remain so positive.
And I think that will always stick with me.
When Bowman hired Young to take Lettie's
newborn pictures, the photographer
saw an opportunity to honor James.
We all started turning right away
that I wanted to do something special.
Even with all of the planning,
nobody could have staged this.
I was like, oh, my God,
this could not have been better.
And, you know, she was looking
over it where he would be,
which made me feel so good,
and it just gave me. A
lot of sense of of peace.
And she kept looking
over there. Yeah, yeah.
She wouldn't stop because I
started with her head up and
she was like, Nope, yeah,
Letty may have seen her brother,
but when the photo went online,
thousands of people saw the
unbreakable connection between
family in this life and the next.
To me, it's helpful to talk about
this whole thing is pretty awesome.
Now, she also says the picture has provided
a platform on which people can talk about
their own experiences with
loss and infertility.
But she also credits Facebook
groups and connecting with
others who are experiencing
the same kind of complications
with helping her find clarity.
So if you know someone or you yourself
are experiencing some difficulties,
we have links to different
resources right now on ksdk.com.
It's a wonderful story to tell.