A Moreno Valley family is gearing up for a momentous occasion - a baby shower - but this shower will be unlike any other as the family readies for the arrival of a miracle baby girl, whose birth will be made possible by science and a text message.
Lenee Nicole Kehnt is having a baby after becoming pregnant with the sperm of her dead husband.
NBC4 covered Kehnt and Jeremi's story in December when Kehnt was 18 weeks pregnant with Remi.
On Friday, Kehnt and her family were putting the finishing touches on the baby shower that was to celebrate the miracle child.
Kehnt's husband Jeremi, 36, died in a motorcycle crash last May when a minivan driver made a U-turn in front of Jeremi's oncoming motorcycle.
Kehnt and her husband were planning to have another child, and weeks before his death he sent her texts asking her to take his sperm if anything were to ever happen to him.
The partial text message conversation read:
U.S. & World
Jeremi: "If for any reason I get in an accident and in a coma or brain dead, keep me on machines. Till I come back. And u can pull sperm from me then to have a girl. And u can move on if u wanted. Just saying."
Lenee: "Why would you say that jeremi. What happened. Don't say that to me. [What's] the matter with u"
Jeremi: "I'm just saying. Planning on worst case scenario."
Los Angeles-based California Cryobank performed a postmortem sperm retrieval at the coroner's office.
"As excited as I am, I'm still very, very hurt," Kehnt said. "I'm still wishing he was here. It's always going to be bittersweet."
The cryobank said Kehnt's is only the fourth pregnancy from this procedure. Baby Remi will be the third birth.
She is due just before the one-year anniversary of Jeremi's death, which falls on May 20.
