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By Uriel Heilman for JTA
Even
before their daughter, Ayelet Galena, was diagnosed with a rare bone
marrow disease called dyskeratosis congenita around her first birthday,
parents Hindy Poupko and Seth Galena knew they wanted to have more
children.
But once the diagnosis arrived, the couple had a dilemma: There was a fair chance their next child would have the life-threatening genetic disease, too.
Over the course of the next year or so, Galena and Poupko didn’t have much time to think about other kids. They were busy tending to Ayelet, whose struggle they decided to document on a blog, Eye on Ayelet. It quickly gained a following in the thousands. While her kidneys failed her, Ayelet became an Internet sensation. Galena dubbed the phenomenon Ayelet Nation.
When Ayelet died on Jan. 31, 2012, less than two months after her second birthday, thousands of people from around the world who had never met the little Orthodox Jewish girl from Manhattan’s Upper West Side seemed to share in her parents’ grief, overwhelming Poupko and Galena with condolence messages, food packages and gifts.
This month, good news finally arrived in the Galena-Poupko household: The couple had a new baby, a healthy boy born two weeks ago. On Sunday at his bris, they named him Akiva Max Galena.
The journey that led to their second child was no easy feat, as Poupko and Galena told JTA this week in an interview squeezed between feedings and diaper changes.
When Ayelet was diagnosed, she immediately was tested for the seven known genetic mutations that cause dyskeratosis congenita. But the results showed she didn’t have any of them, which meant her illness was caused by an unknown genetic mutation that could not be identified by prenatal screening.
“From that moment we always knew that having more children and confidently healthy children would be a challenge,” Poupko said. “They couldn’t even tell us if the disease was inherited or not.”
Continue reading.
Even
before their daughter, Ayelet Galena, was diagnosed with a rare bone
marrow disease called dyskeratosis congenita around her first birthday,
parents Hindy Poupko and Seth Galena knew they wanted to have more
children.But once the diagnosis arrived, the couple had a dilemma: There was a fair chance their next child would have the life-threatening genetic disease, too.
Over the course of the next year or so, Galena and Poupko didn’t have much time to think about other kids. They were busy tending to Ayelet, whose struggle they decided to document on a blog, Eye on Ayelet. It quickly gained a following in the thousands. While her kidneys failed her, Ayelet became an Internet sensation. Galena dubbed the phenomenon Ayelet Nation.
When Ayelet died on Jan. 31, 2012, less than two months after her second birthday, thousands of people from around the world who had never met the little Orthodox Jewish girl from Manhattan’s Upper West Side seemed to share in her parents’ grief, overwhelming Poupko and Galena with condolence messages, food packages and gifts.
This month, good news finally arrived in the Galena-Poupko household: The couple had a new baby, a healthy boy born two weeks ago. On Sunday at his bris, they named him Akiva Max Galena.
The journey that led to their second child was no easy feat, as Poupko and Galena told JTA this week in an interview squeezed between feedings and diaper changes.
When Ayelet was diagnosed, she immediately was tested for the seven known genetic mutations that cause dyskeratosis congenita. But the results showed she didn’t have any of them, which meant her illness was caused by an unknown genetic mutation that could not be identified by prenatal screening.
“From that moment we always knew that having more children and confidently healthy children would be a challenge,” Poupko said. “They couldn’t even tell us if the disease was inherited or not.”
Continue reading.
page.
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