Couple who met in hospital, aged four, now have own daughter

Emily and Cameron Kohlman met in hospital, both aged four.

Twenty-two years later, they are married with a daughter of their own.

It’s an incredible story.

Back in 1995, Emily and Cameron were scheduled for the same surgery – the same week – for a congenital condition called bladder exstrophy.

Emily and Cameron Kohlman met in hospital in 1995. Image: Supplied

Bladder exstrophy is a birth defect where the bladder has formed irregularly. Even after successful surgery, there are complications that can be painful and tiring to manage, anything from incontinence and UTIs to unbearable bladder spasms.

But the condition introduced Emily to the love of her life.

The pair had both been brought to John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for treatment by a leading surgeon. After that, they were inseparable, and at the age of 14, started dating for real.

“I might argue I fell in love with Cameron in 1995, the first time he kissed me at the Ronald McDonald House,” Emily writes in a piece she penned for Courage to Shine, an online community for bladder exstrophy sufferers.

The two lived in different states, so their relationship was long-distance for a long time.

There were doubters, Emily says, but Cameron “proved each of them wrong” when he proposed in 2012.

“[He] got down on one knee, pulled an engagement ring from his cowboy boot and asked me to be his wife.”

After nine years dating, most of it long-distance, Emily and Cameron had the wedding of their dreams. Image: Supplied

In 2015, they got married. And late last year, Emily discovered she was pregnant.

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“You know how the couple usually takes the pregnancy test together, impatiently waiting and staring at the stick changing colours like a chameleon on the bathroom sink? DO that, not alone,” she writes.

She was overwhelmed with excitement, of course. But worry, too – would the baby inherit her and Cameron’s condition?

As the pregnancy unfolded, both watched anxiously for signs of the baby’s bladder; seeing it on the ultrasound would mean everything was okay. But 20 weeks in, there was nothing, and they prepared themselves to deal with the condition all over again.

Then a scan at 21 weeks showed a healthy bladder.

“Comfort flooded every ounce of me,” Emily writes. “This was a big deal, not only for us, but for many families with lingering questions for their BE kids, too.”

Everleigh Grace was born in May of this year, happy and healthy.

There's not a lot of data on children born to two parents with BE – but Everleigh Grace was perfectly healthy. Image: Supplied

To Emily, her little girl is yet more proof that her painful condition has also been the source of all the beautiful things in her life.

Emily, Cameron and Everleigh Grace in 2017. Image: Supplied

“There have been times I called myself crazy for saying this,” she writes.

“[But] back in 1995, our parents could not have guessed this defect would abundantly reward us with a lifetime of blessings.”