"To ensure our daughter never felt alone:" Parents get legs tattooed to match young daughter's birthmark

ENGLAND (WITI) -- A mother and father from England have done something big in an effort to help their young daughter feel more accepted. Tanya and Adam Phillips had their legs tattooed to match their daughter's birthmark.

The Mirror reports Tanya Phillips says it's something she never dreamed she would do, but she did it for the most heartfelt of reasons. She and her husband Adam chose to get the tattoos to duplicate the strawberry rose birthmark that covers half their young daughter's body.



"Most people might think it’s very extreme, but to us it was the natural thing to do to ensure our daughter never felt different or alone in the world," Tanya told Mirror.

Tanya says her daughter, 18-month-old Honey-Rae was born with the birthmark that has grown as she has.

"It is bright red and it covers almost half of the right side of her body. It stretches from her toes to her lower back. It hasn’t faded with time. In fact some days, it looks darker than others. She’s struggled to breathe when she was first born and was rushed to the special care unit. When I went to see her she was just lying in a little incubator and that’s when I saw it. It broke my heart. I just sobbed and sobbed knowing my baby was going to permanently marked for the rest of her life," Tanya told Mirror.

Tanya Phillips told Mirror she knew her daughter may be subjected to ridicule because of her birthmark, and last summer, for the first time, Tanya witnessed it. Tanya says she was shopping with her daughter, who was wearing shorts and sandals, when she witnessed an old couple whispering and staring at the young girl's legs.

"I was distraught. It confirmed all my worries and fears," Tanya said.

That's when Tanya and Adam decided they'd get the tattoos.

"We knew we had to do something to ensure Honey-Rae grew up knowing she was very much loved," Tanya said.

Adam got his tattoo for Christmas last year, and Tanya recently got hers as part of her 40th birthday celebration.



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