Brain-Dead Mother Gives Her Baby the Gift of Life
Liz Townsend

Susan Michelle Rollin Torres gave birth to her second child August 2, but the premature delivery was anything but typical. Declared brain dead after an undiagnosed melanoma caused a stroke, Mrs. Torres spent 12 weeks on life support until her unborn daughter had developed enough to survive on her own.

Susan Anne Catherine Torres was born by Caesarean section to Susan and Jason Torres at 27 weeks’ gestation, weighing 1 pound, 13 ounces.

Little Susan will remain in the hospital until October 31, which was her original due date. The family reports she is doing well.

“She has broken the 2 lbs. mark and is continuing to grow like a weed,” they wrote August 23 on the Susan M. Torres Fund web site. “She has been removed from the ventilators and is receiving small amount of formula every day.”

Baby Susan was born at 8:18 a.m. Right after the delivery she was “very vigorous” and almost kicked an intravenous tube out of a doctor’s hand, USA Today reported. Tests showed that the cancer did not spread to the placenta or the baby.

Her mother was removed from life support the day after her baby was born and, sadly, passed away.

“This is obviously a bittersweet time for our family,” said family spokesman Justin Torres, Jason Torres’s brother, at an August 3 press conference. “We are overjoyed at the birth of Baby Susan and deeply grieved at the loss of her mother.”

The family relied on their Catholic faith and Susan’s deep commitment to her children to buoy them during their ordeal. “From the beginning, we knew that two things would get us through to the baby’s birth: God’s providence and Susan’s determination,” said Justin Torres.

“Susan was always the toughest person in that ICU room. Her passing is a testament to the truth that human life is a gift from God and that children are always to be fought for, even if life requires—as it did of Susan—the last full measure of devotion.”

Jason Torres quit his job and spent 12 weeks with his wife and unborn baby at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, sleeping in their room and going home only to play with his two-year-old son Peter. He was faced with a grueling decision May 7 after his wife, then 15 weeks pregnant, collapsed at home.

“We were talking,” Jason Torres said on Larry King Live. “And after our conversation, she just, she stopped. And stopped breathing. And I did CPR and called 911. And we went to the hospital and we’ve been there ever since.”

Doctors discovered that Susan had a cancerous growth in her brain that hemorrhaged, the Washington Post reported. They immediately operated to relieve the pressure, and she stabilized.

But the doctors gave Torres the difficult news: his wife would never recover. But there was a slim chance that their baby could live if Susan’s body was kept alive by machines.

“In their dry way of speaking, they said the event of the 7th was a fatal event” for Susan, Torres told the Post, “and that we could try to continue for 10 weeks and save the child, or just stop now.”

“There’s not a glimmer of doubt in my mind that this is what she would have wanted,” Torres told USA Today. “Any chance at all to save the baby, and Susan would have said, ‘Let’s go for it.’” Both his and Susan’s family supported the decision.

The 12 weeks of waiting were very difficult on the entire family. Susan’s vital signs were closely monitored, and doctors could only watch as the cancer continued to spread throughout her body. The decision was made to deliver the baby when the cancer spread to Susan’s liver and kidneys, her blood pressure began to drop, and an infection was beginning, USA Today reported.

One day after Baby Susan’s birth, the family gathered in her mother’s hospital room for the last time. “After a brief goodbye with her husband, parents, and other family members, and after receiving the last sacraments of the Catholic Church,” Justin Torres said at the press conference, “Susan Michelle Rollin Torres passed away after the machines which sustained her life for the past 12 weeks were turned off. She was 26 years old.”

The family established the Susan M. Torres Fund in May to help raise money for the long and expensive hospital stay. About $450,000 has been raised so far. Those interested in donating can log on to www.susantorresfund.org or write to Susan M. Torres Fund, c/o Faith and Action, P.O. Box 34105, Washington, DC 20043-0105.

In addition to monetary gifts, the family said that the prayers and good wishes they received helped them tremendously. “This family has literally been lifted up in prayer, and I can never express adequately our gratitude for the prayers and support we have received from people all over the globe,” Justin Torres said at the press conference.

“We could not have made it through this ordeal without you, and on behalf of my brother, my family, and the Rollin family, I wish to thank you and ask your continued prayers for the newest member of our family.”

The family will be sure that Baby Susan knows how special her mother was. “I’m going to tell her her mother was one of the toughest women I’ve ever met, that she was absolutely determined in what she did,” said Torres, according to the Post. “And that, ‘You cannot believe how many people fought for you.’”