A bride donated bone marrow to save the baby from a stranger. The child lived – and was his flower girl.

As soon as Hayden Hatfield started walking down the alley, his eyes focused on his flower girl

The bride thought of their special bond – years ago, she had donated her bone marrow to help the toddler to fight a rare form of childhood leukemia. They stayed in touch through letters and phone calls and toys and trinkets sent by mail. They had become like a family. Now that Hatfield was getting married, she said, it meant for her to have the three-year-old baby at her side on June 9th.

"I did not want to take her eyes off" says about when she saw Skye Savren-McCormick waiting at the Shiloh Baptist Church altar in Hartford, Ala.

"Knowing that she was not only there but that she was part of this life event for me, I was the most humble They do not understand how much they are important to me, "she said about Skye and her parents.

Hatfield, now 26-year-old Hayden Ryals, was registered as a bone marrow donor in 2015 said when she had struggled, changing her major at Auburn University and still trying to decide what she wanted to do with her life and who she wanted to be. It was almost exactly one a year later when she received a phone call – she was a match to an anonymous child of 1 year away from several miles.

"I had started to wonder if I had a goal here, she said. "This phone call gave me a purpose."

After Skye was born in 2015, she developed petechiae, or bruises, said his father, Todd Savren-McCormick. The bruising eventually disappeared but then returned, and the child continued to fall ill. Four days before her first birthday, after months of doctor appointments and unanswered questions, Skye was diagnosed with juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia, a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer, according to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Thus, on July 28, 2016, Alabama doctors took some of the bone marrow from Ryals and the next day doctors in California transplanted it into the bloodstream from Skye.

. Skye's father in Ventura, California, said her daughter had developed a bacterial infection and her spleen had been removed because of cancer complications. She then needed a second transplant – which was possible because Ryals had given enough bone marrow for two procedures, he said.

Then, as Skye was recovering from the second bone marrow transplant, Savren-McCormick swelled up and the doctors diagnosed her with a second form of cancer – a post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease. She had attacked her eyelid on both sides of her neck, chest, and spine, her father said.

She needed chemotherapy, which meant that she needed another transplant

Savren-McCormick Because there are regulations on donations, they returned to the Be the Match registry and found another donor – this time using peripheral blood stem cells instead of bone marrow. But the father said, "If Hayden had not donated his bone marrow, our daughter would not have made another donation, it brought us to a place where we could survive." [19659003] But Ryals said that she did not save the toddler.

"It has always been the other way around," she said. "She helped me, she saved me … it's the real hero."

During the past year, the two families remained in contact but never met face to face. In March, Ryals sent Skye a very special gift for her 3rd birthday – an Elsa doll from the movie "Frozen", a Poppy cover "Trolls" and an invitation to her wedding.

"I said that I wanted them to know how much I love them and how much they are wanted," said Ryals, who said that even though she knew it was a blow of fire, she mentioned how nice it would be for Skye to be her flower girl.

Skye's father said the toddler was under oxygen and was fighting Graft-Versus-Host Disease, a complication But, he said, as the wedding date approached, Skye was getting better, so they took her to Hartford, Alabama.

Ryals and Skye stand out. are met for the first time at the church a day before the wedding.Ryals said that when she entered, she was overwhelmed by emotion.She walked towards Skye, she said, and is

Ryals said that Skye's mother asked the toddler who was Ryals and she replied, "Hay-Hay", her nickname for Ryals. eint Ryals.

"It was like a fairy tale," Ryals said. She said that she thought, "I can not believe that I finally meet this little girl.

On June 9, Skye entered the chapel, opening the way with flower petals, as she had been practicing – stepping, walking, dropping – her father said.

Ryals said that there was not a dry eye in the church.

"It was amazing to me how many heart ropes she was pulling all at once," she says.

Then Ryals went down the alley to marry his fiance, Adrian, wearing a draped bouquet of something from Skye and his parents – a gold medallion with Skye's photo hidden from one aside and a message engraved on the other: "This heart beats with yours."

"I have never been able to describe our connection, I have never been able to explain it," she said. "It was the way the more perfect than I've ever heard describe. "

During the ceremony, Skye sits quietly on the steps of the altar, playing with the leaves on a nearby fern and pulling the # 39; s bow on her dress. 19659003] Ryals said that she felt like she had known Skye and her parents all her life.

Skye's father agreed. " It's as if we had a new family in Alabama and it was happy, "he said.