Country Star Randy Rogers Shares Heartbreaking Story Of His Daughter’s Death

Country star Randy Rogers has opened up about the tragic death of his newborn baby daughter, who died earlier this month less than a week after she was born, Star Pulse is reporting.

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, country star Randy Rogers and his wife, Chelsea, welcomed their daughter, Rumer Rain Rogers, earlier this month. Unfortunately, the little girl died less than a week after she was born.

We are sad to say that Rumer Rain Rogers passed away last night. She was well loved, well cared for and in her parents loving arms.

— Randy Rogers Band (@rrbchoir) June 10, 2015

At the time, Rogers would only say that his daughter died of a “very rare condition,” but he promised to tell the story when he was ready. Now, in an interview with People, the country star has opened up about his heartbreaking story.

“She wouldn’t eat and she wouldn’t wake up. She was very lethargic, she never opened her eyes. We kept getting assurances from the doctors and nurses – a lot of babies think they’re still in mommy’s belly and they don’t want to wake up for a day or eat – but then Rumer went to the NICU [Neonatal Intensive Care Unit] about eight hours after her birth.”

Doctors ran test after test on the little girl and eventually landed on the cause of her problems: nonketotic hyperglycinemia (NKH).

According to NKH Network, NKH is an extremely rare genetic condition affecting one in 60,000 newborns. There is no cure.

“Non-ketotic Hyperglycinemia is a condition where sufferers cannot make an enzyme that is used to metabolise, ie break down, glycine. It is a genetic condition and a genetic defect will have come from each parent.”

Randy describes the toll the disease took on his newborn daughter.

“She was put on a feeding tube pretty early on because she couldn’t eat or swallow, then she decided to stop breathing and we had to put her on a vent.”

Unfortunately, Rumer Rain Rogers lost her battle with NKH, and she died six days after she was born.

For Randy and his wife, through their heartbreak they see the positive in the situation: They know now that since they’re both carriers of the gene that causes NKH, they know what steps they’ll need to take to prevent another tragedy if and when they decide to have another baby.

“We’ll just have to do in vitro fertilization. There will need to be genetic screening and genetic testing done before the implantation of the fertilized egg. It’s given us a lot of joy and hope knowing that it is possible for us to do this; it’s just going to have to be a different route than the traditional one.”

The country star says that his daughter’s death has made him and his wife “very passionate” about the support system for parents of sick children.

[Image courtesy of: Twitter]