Perth local Lana held out her boarding pass as the flight attendant looked her in the eyes and asked if she was sure she wanted to board the plane.
As early COVID-19 lockdowns were imposed, Western Australia had announced it would shut its borders to prevent new cases entering the state.
With her dog, car and house in Perth, Lana was planning only a short trip to Darwin to meet her potential new love interest.
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But now she faced the probability of not being able to return home, indefinitely.
“They told me that if I got on this plane I wouldn’t be getting back,” Lana tells 7Life of her sliding doors moment.
“I knew it was the right thing. I got on that plane and I was the seventh person on.”
As she recounts the story, Lana smiles at the serendipity of the number seven — which she has always considered her lucky number.
She has ectrodactyly, a hand difference resulting in her having only a total of seven fingers — four on the left and three on the right.
When she counted only six other people on the plane, she knew she had made the right decision.
And when she landed in Darwin — and laid eyes for the first time on Dave — it cemented her decision to board the flight.
The pair had been chatting for a few months after they met working for the non-profit organisation The Aussie Hands Foundation, which works to support those living with limb differences.
Born and raised in New Zealand, Lana had never had such support — in fact, she had never met another person living with a hand difference.
Until she met Dave.
Dave has symbrachydactyly – for him, this means he is missing the three middle fingers from his right hand and has a small thumb and little finger.
“We had everything in common, and sharing seven fingers, our hand difference was the least thing we had in common,” Lana says.
Lana discovered The Aussie Hands Foundation after moving from New Zealand to Perth, and she applied to be a member of its board.
She was welcomed with open arms and, when she logged into their first meeting via Zoom, she spotted Dave.
For Lana, it was love at first sight.
The pair connected via Facebook and shared stories of what it was like growing up with a difference.
“We just clicked, within a week we just knew, it was this deep soul connection,” Lana says.
With Dave living in Darwin, and Lana in Perth, the pair spent hours every day on FaceTime.
Three months after they begun their online relationship, they decided to meet.
So Lana boarded the flight to the Northern Territory — essentially moving straight in to Dave’s home with him.
“Basically, we met and moved in together,” Lana says, adding that when WA re-opened its borders four months later she decided to stay in Darwin permanently.
In December 2022, the couple discovered were expecting; they planned to name the baby Jeremiah.
And the following March, Dave proposed to Lana, in a hot air balloon.
Specialised scan
When the baby was at 16 weeks gestation, the couple flew to Melbourne for a specialised scan.
Lana’s ectrodactyly is part of a genetic syndrome called Ectrodactyly Ectodermal Dysplasia-Clefting Syndrome (EEC).
The condition had a 50 per cent chance of being passed down to her unborn baby.
As the ultrasound wand was passed over Lana’s belly, a team of specialists — and the expectant parents — were glued to the monitor.
Just then, the baby lifted a hand up as if to wave.
“He gave us a little wave and we could see four fingers,” Lana recalls, explaining their boy had five finger bones but two were fused together by skin.
He also had a cleft lip and palate, an oral difference where the mouth doesn’t develop fully in the womb.
The parents-to-be were encouraged to move to Melbourne where more advanced care could be provided.
“There are a lot of emotions that come with finding out a child has a hand difference,” Lana says.
“But I feel like I was destined to share a hand difference with Jeremiah.
“And we were the best parents to support him through that.”
After much consideration, the pair decided to relocate to Melbourne.
Before leaving the Top End, they married in an intimate ceremony.
“We eloped on a beach in Darwin,” Lana says.
“Darwin was where we met, where we fell in love and where we grew Jeremiah.”
Jeremiah came into the world on August 19, 2023, two weeks early, spending the first month of his life in the NICU.
Born with three toes on one foot and four on the other, he also had webbing joining his fingers on both of his hands as well as a cleft lip and palate.
After four weeks in hospital, he was discharged, with a treatment plan to surgically correct some of his differences.
At six months old, he had surgery to correct his cleft lip, and in May 2024, he had hand correction surgery.
Both operations were a success.
When Jeremiah is 12 months old, he is scheduled in for cleft palate surgery.
But for now, he is in the loving arms of his mum and dad.
“We make a good team, Dave and I,” Lana says.
“We have similar values and we think the same.”
Lana is still pinching herself to have found The Aussie Hands Foundation.
Growing up having no support for her hand difference, she knows Jeremiah is surrounded by love and support — and by people who also have a limb difference.