{"id":101477,"date":"2025-02-18T13:52:16","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T06:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cutiething.com\/?p=24050"},"modified":"2025-02-20T13:53:15","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T06:53:15","slug":"9-year-old-lives-to-meet-his-newborn-baby-sister-before-dying-of-cancer-he-managed-to-hang-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/9-year-old-lives-to-meet-his-newborn-baby-sister-before-dying-of-cancer-he-managed-to-hang-on\/","title":{"rendered":"9-Year-Old Lives to Meet His Newborn Baby Sister Before Dying of Cancer: &lsquo;He Managed to Hang On&rsquo;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='\"loc' article-header>\n<div id='\"people-article-header_1-0\"' class='\"comp' people-article-header mntl-article-header>\n<h1 class='\"article-heading' text-headline-400><span style='\"color:'>When Bailey Cooper, 9, was told he didn&rsquo;t have much longer to live, all he could think about was his little sister.\n\n\n<div class='\"loc' article-content>\n<figure id='\"figure-article_1-0\"' class='\"comp' figure-article mntl-universal-primary-image right-rail__offset text-utility-100 figure-landscape primary-image>\n<div class='\"primary-image__media\"'>\n<div class='\"img-placeholder\"'><img loading='\"lazy\"' decoding='\"async\"' class='\"aligncenter' size-full wp-image-24051 src="%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/echowoven.com%5C/wp-content%5C/uploads%5C/2025%5C/02%5C/bc1-2000-03efbb26a61745db8b69c49.jpg%5C%22" alt='\"\"' width='\"750\"' height='\"563\"' title='\"\"'>\n<figcaption id='\"primary-image__figcap_1-0\"' class='\"comp' primary-image__figcap mntl-figure-caption figure-article-caption><span class='\"figure-article-caption-owner\"'>Photo: Courtesy Lee Cooper\n<div id='\"article-content_1-0\"' class='\"comp' article-content mntl-block>\n<div id='\"mntl-sc-page_1-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-page mntl-block structured-content data-sc-sticky-offset='\"90\"' data-sc-ad-label-height='\"24\"' data-sc-ad-track-spacing='\"100\"' data-sc-min-track-height='\"250\"' data-sc-max-track-height='\"600\"' data-sc-breakpoint='\"50em\"' data-sc-load-immediate='\"4\"' data-sc-content-positions='\"[1,' data-bind-scroll-on-start='\"true\"'>\n<p id='\"mntl-sc-block_1-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html>Nine-year-old Bailey Cooper had just relapsed from cancer for the second time in 2017 when he learned that his mother, Rachel Cooper, was pregnant. Despite his dire prognosis, Bailey could only think of one thing: his future baby sister.\n</p><p id='\"mntl-sc-block_3-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html>\u201cAll he was concerned about was meeting his little sister. Bailey knew something wasn\u2019t right. He could feel it in himself,\u201d Bailey\u2019s dad, Lee Cooper, 31, tells PEOPLE. \u201cWe got told the news late August that he wasn\u2019t going to survive. We were told it was days to weeks. We were very open with him. He was taking it in \u2026 He was thinking, \u2018Oh no, I won\u2019t meet my sister.\u2019 \u201d\n</p><p id='\"mntl-sc-block_5-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html>Just months earlier, Rachel and Lee, of Bristol, U.K., revealed to their sons, Bailey and Riley, now 7, that she was pregnant and later learned that they\u2019d have a little sister, Millie. The news proved to be a pick-me-up for the ailing boy, who had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 2016.\n</p><p id='\"mntl-sc-block_7-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html>\u201cWhen we told him, it completely lifted him. He was completely over the moon,\u201d Lee says, adding that Bailey was an extra special part of his mother\u2019s pregnancy.\n<figure id='\"mntl-sc-block_9-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block people-sc-block-image mntl-sc-block-image mntl-sc-block-image--no-theme no-theme figure-portrait figure-high-res>\n<div class='\"figure-media\"'>\n<div class='\"img-placeholder\"'><img loading='\"lazy\"' decoding='\"async\"' class='\"aligncenter' size-full wp-image-24052 src="%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/echowoven.com%5C/wp-content%5C/uploads%5C/2025%5C/02%5C/bc3-1-2000-d66cf0cc7f03402797232.jpg%5C%22" alt='\"\"' width='\"1127\"' height='\"2000\"' title='\"\"'>\n<figcaption id='\"mntl-figure-caption_1-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-figure-caption text-utility-100 figure-article-caption><span class='\"figure-article-caption-text\"'>Bailey Cooper holding sister Millie.\u00a0<span class='\"figure-article-caption-owner\"'>Courtesy Lee Cooper\n<p id='\"mntl-sc-block_10-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html>\u201cHe was amazing. He was adamant on being around Rachel,\u201d Lee tells PEOPLE of Bailey. \u201cHe\u2019d always be cuddling her, trying to listen to the baby in her tummy. He\u2019d sing to her. He was just anticipating meeting her. He\u2019d read stories while resting his head on her tummy. He\u2019d sing just so the baby would be familiar with his voice.\u201d\n</p><p id='\"mntl-sc-block_12-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html>Bailey told his family that he\u2019d try his hardest to live to see Millie\u2019s birth. And he did. Millie was born on Nov. 30, 2017.\n</p><p id='\"mntl-sc-block_14-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html>\u201cHe just managed to hang on, basically. How he did it, we don\u2019t know,\u201d Lee says of his son, adding that he was \u201csmitten\u201d by little Millie. \u201cHe\u2019d come into the hospital, he sat down. He was getting quite frail, but he\u2019d come straight in as quick as he could, shuffling his feet. We had to pass Millie to him. He just sat in the chair with Millie in his arms and he wouldn\u2019t let her go.\u201d\n<figure id='\"mntl-sc-block_18-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block people-sc-block-image mntl-sc-block-image mntl-sc-block-image--no-theme no-theme figure-portrait figure-high-res>\n<div class='\"figure-media\"'>\n<div class='\"img-placeholder\"'><img loading='\"lazy\"' decoding='\"async\"' class='\"aligncenter' size-full wp-image-24053 src="%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/echowoven.com%5C/wp-content%5C/uploads%5C/2025%5C/02%5C/bc4-1-2000-c8fc02096b194752aa07d.jpg%5C%22" alt='\"\"' width='\"1500\"' height='\"2000\"' title='\"\"'>\n<figcaption id='\"mntl-figure-caption_2-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-figure-caption text-utility-100 figure-article-caption><span class='\"figure-article-caption-text\"'>From left: Rachel, Millie, Lee and Riley.\u00a0<span class='\"figure-article-caption-owner\"'>Courtesy Lee Cooper\n<p id='\"mntl-sc-block_19-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html>Photos of the sweet moments showed Bailey sitting next to his little brother Riley, with Millie in his arms. Bailey spent the final month of his life as close to the little girl as possible.\n</p><p id='\"mntl-sc-block_21-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html>\u201cIt was amazing, but it was hard to see as well. He was completely smitten by her,\u201d Lee says. \u201cThe short time he was with her, he would hold her every day. He\u2019d be by her side. He fed her. He bathed her. He changed her. He sang to her every day until he physically couldn\u2019t do it anymore.\u201d\n</p><p id='\"mntl-sc-block_23-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html>Bailey died on Christmas Eve of 2017.\n</p><p id='\"mntl-sc-block_25-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html>\u201cIt\u2019s been really hard without Bailey. It\u2019s been wonderful having Millie around. She\u2019s been helping us deal with what\u2019s happened. It was so hard for [Rachel], her daily routine had completely changed without him,\u201d Lee says.\n<figure id='\"mntl-sc-block_27-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block people-sc-block-image mntl-sc-block-image mntl-sc-block-image--no-theme no-theme figure-portrait figure-high-res>\n<div class='\"figure-media\"'>\n<div class='\"img-placeholder\"'><img loading='\"lazy\"' decoding='\"async\"' class='\"aligncenter' size-full wp-image-24054 src="%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/echowoven.com%5C/wp-content%5C/uploads%5C/2025%5C/02%5C/bc2-1-fc4575336656453c9434288d25-1.jpg%5C%22" alt='\"\"' width='\"1794\"' height='\"1800\"' title='\"\"'>\n<figcaption id='\"mntl-figure-caption_3-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-figure-caption text-utility-100 figure-article-caption><span class='\"figure-article-caption-text\"'>Lee (left), Bailey (top center), Riley (bottom center) and Rachel.\u00a0<span class='\"figure-article-caption-owner\"'>Courtesy Lee Cooper\n<p id='\"mntl-sc-block_28-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html>\u201c[I miss his] presence, his cheeky banter, his jokes, the laugh, his company. It\u2019s such a difficult time, but at the same time, you look back and we were lucky to have nine-and-a-half great years with him.\u201d\n</p><p id='\"mntl-sc-block_30-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html>Even though Bailey is gone, Lee says he and Rachel will do all they can to make sure Millie knows about her big brother.\n</p><p id='\"mntl-sc-block_32-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html>\u201cWe tell her about Bailey every day. We show her pictures of him. We\u2019ve got pictures around the house of Bailey. Every time we mention Bailey\u2019s name she points up at a picture,\u201d he says.\n</p><p id='\"mntl-sc-block_34-0\"' class='\"comp' mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html>\u201cShe knows who he is already. Her face lights up every time she sees a picture of Bailey on our phones. We show her videos. There\u2019s no way she\u2019s ever not going to know who he is. We talk about him every day.\u201d\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"</p><p>When Bailey Cooper, 9, was told he didn&rsquo;t have much longer to live, all he could think about was his little sister. Photo: Courtesy Lee Cooper Nine-year-old Bailey Cooper had just relapsed from cancer for the second time in 2017 when he learned that his mother, Rachel Cooper, was pregnant. Despite his dire prognosis, Bailey &hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":101485,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[670,1439],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101486,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101477\/revisions\/101486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}</p></span></span></figcaption></div></div></figure></p></span></span></figcaption></div></div></figure></p></span></span></figcaption></div></div></figure></p></div></div></span></figcaption></div></div></figure></div></span></h1></div></div>