“She was fighting for her life,” Angie Foy tells PEOPLE exclusively about her daughter Harper, who was born with a genetic skin disorder requiring three hour-long showers a day Courtesy Angie Foy When Angie Foy gave birth to her third child in 2015, she knew immediately that something wasn’t right. “Our life changed instantly when she was born. They told my husband to put his camera away, and the [delivery] room got really silent.
I could just tell from the look in his eyes and the doctor's eyes that they were scrambling like something was going on,” Angie, 48, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “They had no idea what was wrong with her.” was born with harlequin ichthyosis, a rare genetic skin disorder in which the skin is covered in thick plates that crack and split, according to the .
“What happens is her skin builds up and she sheds skin 10 times faster than us. So, in the womb for eight months, all that skin built up and it became a really thick, white body armor, and it was really hard plated. Her eyes were inverted inside out.
I mean, she looked different,” says Angie, who lives with her husband Kevin, Harper, and their two older children in Edmonds, Washington. After photos of a newborn Harper were sent to Seattle Children’s Hospital, a dermatologist on the ichthyosis board recognized the condition and Harper was airlifted to the hospital where she spent the next three months. “Every day she was fighting for her life,” says Angie.
“She wasn't supposed .