Baby Delivers Hope and Joy to Family : Marrow donor: Controversy over conception won’t mar happiness, they say.

The jubilant family of a newborn girl conceived to be a bone marrow donor for her sister said Friday that they won’t allow the controversy over her conception to cloud their happiness.

Marissa Eve Ayala was delivered by Cesarean section at 9:14 p.m. Tuesday at Queen of the Valley Hospital in West Covina. She weighed 6 pounds, 4 ounces and was discharged Friday morning along with her mother, Mary, 43.

“Mary and I are so happy,” said father Abe Ayala, 45, at a hospital press conference. “We have a baby girl and she is very beautiful. We are going to try not to spoil her too much.

“We will not allow our baby daughter to be an object of curiosity nor will we allow her to be injured or placed in any danger.”

Tissue tests during the pregnancy had indicated her bone marrow cells are nearly identical to her 18-year-old sister Anissa’s, who was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia two years ago. Marrow transplants from compatible donors have a 70% chance of thwarting the disease.

The Ayalas, of Walnut, decided to have a baby after failing to locate a donor through the National Marrow Donor Program and testing of Anissa’s family members. There is only a 1-in-20,000 chance that unrelated people will have the same bone marrow type. Children with the same parents, however, stand a 1-in-4 chance of having matching tissue types.

Standing by her father’s side Friday, Anissa said she was “excited . . . so excited” at the birth of her baby sister.

The baby’s middle name, Eve, in the Bible means “the life-giving one,” Anissa told a crowd of reporters, photographers and hospital employees.

The Ayalas said they are thrice blessed: Marissa Eve was conceived after her father underwent a vasectomy reversal operation, the baby is healthy, and she will provide the bone marrow cells that may save her sister’s life.

Some medical experts say the unusual case may give false hope to parents of young leukemia patients and raises troubling ethical questions about whether parents desperate to help a sick child will do what is in the baby’s best interest.

Dr. Rudolf Brutoco, Marissa’s pediatrician and founder of Covina-based Life-Savers Foundation of America, which recruits bone marrow donors, said Friday that he has received “lots of inquiries from families” of leukemia patients who are considering having babies to help their children. But he said he hasn’t advised anyone to follow the Ayalas’ course.

Doctors say bone marrow can be obtained at little risk from an infant at least 6 months old. Marissa’s health will be closely monitored to determine the optimum transplant time.

Dr. Patricia Konrad, a pediatric oncologist at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, will perform the transplant with a team of doctors. She said Anissa doesn’t show signs of deteriorating health but may not be able to wait much longer than six months for bone marrow cells.

After Marissa was born, Konrad and another City of Hope doctor collected cells from the baby’s umbilical cord to be used in the transplant. The so-called stem cells--highly concentrated in umbilical cord blood--help regenerate bone marrow.

To prepare her for the transplant, Anissa must undergo radiation and chemotherapy to destroy the diseased bone marrow. Doctors will insert a needle into Marissa’s hip bone to extract marrow. The tissue will be prepared and injected into Anissa.