Ruby Ashby was born with a large ᴍᴏʟᴇ on her head, covering almost a quarter of her tiny face and reaching down into her eye area. Dark brown in colour, it is also mostly covered in hair. She is the one baby in 500,000 born with the condition, called Cᴏɴɢᴇɴɪᴛᴀʟ Mᴇʟᴀɴᴏᴄʏᴛɪᴄ Nᴇᴠᴜs.
“We’re just calling it a birthmark – we had the tests and it’s all clear for now but who knows what could happen in the future,” Ruby’s mother Natalie Ashby, from Towradji on the NSW south coast, says.
“When she’s older she won’t want to have it either.
The Ashbys don’t want Ruby to be ʙᴜʟʟɪᴇᴅ at school, or to have to worry about the ᴍᴏʟᴇ as she grows up and so they made the decision to get it removed now.
At just seven months, Ruby doesn’t yet understand what her future holds, but Natalie says she thinks by the time the surgeries are over her little girl will be able to comprehend what is happening.
“I look at her and think she has no idea what she’s about to go through. There’s another lady I’ve spoken to, her daughter is four and she’s had it done and she sort of understands,” she says.
“I hate when people say it’s not a necessity and I think for her it is. I spoke to a man in his 20s who had had one removed when he was a boy and he said it was the best thing his parents could have done.
“We’ve done our research, we’re not taking this on lightly. We think it is the best thing for her.”
The Ashbys want to give Ruby the best care, but all in all the surgeries Ruby needs this year will cost about $30,000.
“We were a bit sʜᴏᴄᴋed by the cost,” Natalie says.
So Natalie’s sister started a Go Fund Me page to help the family meet the cost. It has raised over $12,000 in just seven days.
“We are so overwhelmed by the support – people have been amazing.”
“The support from every single person who has donated to Ruby has really touched the whole family’s hearts,” wrote Ruby’s aunt Ashley Morris on the Go Fund Me page she set up for her niece.
“We can not begin to express how thankful we are with the generosity so many people have shown especially around this time of year where families do find it tough themselves financially,” added Morris.
“Ruby’s first operation cost has already been raised, this is something we never thought would be achievable so quickly.”
Ruby’s job is to remove extra skin so that doctors may replace the ᴍᴏʟᴇ-covered region.
A silicone balloon will be placed beneath Ruby’s skin and gradually inflated to expand her current skin sufficiently for physicians to operate with.
Ruby will require seven procedures to remove the birthmark before starting school, which her family hopes will be completed by the start of the school year.