Maria's Story; Underscoring The Need For More Donors:

Marrow Donor And Child Recipient Meet

Maria Lopez has firsthand experience with a mother's heartbreak, so she didn't hesitate in December 1996, when the call came to donate bone marrow to a sick baby.

"I was ecstatic," said Lopez, a communications consultant for Southwestern Bell who had registered as a donor during a company blood drive.

On Friday, Lopez met the infant whose life she had saved during a news conference at Santa Rosa Children's Hospital.

Little Jennifer Betancourt, nearly 1 1/2 years old, issued coos and smiles, and her mother, Ana Pena, embraced her daughter's benefactor.

The two women conversed softly in Spanish while doctors called the transplant "a miracle" and heaped kudos on Lopez for agreeing to donate bone marrow.

"I find all this attention awkward," Lopez said. "I would certainly do it again."

Her own daughter, ironically also named Jennifer, died in 1979 at the age of 3 after a freak accident at home; the memory of which brought tears to her eyes.

Lopez said she didn't know the name of the child who received her bone marrow until Friday.

"It's fate," she said of the similar names. "I feel like I'm blessed to give somebody else a chance."

Lopez and little Jennifer were "matched" for the transplant through the National Marrow Donor Program, whose policies preclude donors and recipients from meeting in the first year after the operation.

Dr. Richard Wayne, chief executive officer at Santa Rosa, called it a miracle that Lopez had registered as a donor and that Jennifer's family and doctors had found Lopez living in the same city.

"This is a great way to start a Valentine's Day weekend," he said.

Dr. Naynesh R. Kamani, who said he has treated Jennifer for more than a year, said Lopez's bone marrow donation truly was a life-saving gesture.

"She (Jennifer) would not be here today were it not for her (Lopez's) generosity," Kamani said.

Within days of being born, the child was diagnosed with a potentially fatal deficiency in her immune system. The transplant cured the disorder, Kamani said.

Doctors and officials with the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center used Friday's event to implore people, especially minorities, to sign up for the donor program.

Hispanics and blacks are significantly underrepresented in the donor program, Kamani said.

While the country's population is about 17 percent black and 13 percent Hispanic, the pool of registered donors is only about 9 percent of each minority group, he said.