Kiersten Miles had been nannying for only three weeks when she made the decision.
The baby girl she had started caring for had a rare, life-threatening liver disease in which her liver's central bile duct had been inexplicably destroyed and bile was building up into her liver, the baby's mother said.
The whites of her eyes were gray.
Her skin was yellow.
And some doctors predicted that the child might not live past her second birthday.
But 22-year-old Miles had a solution: she would give the girl a piece of her own liver.
"Especially for a baby who can't really ask for help, it didn't seem like that much of a sacrifice," she told The Washington Post, "because I'd be saving a life."
Earlier this month, Miles donated a portion of her liver to Talia Rosko - a priceless gift that the child's family says saved the 16-month-old's life.
George and Farra Rosko, of Jackson, New Jersey, hired Miles in summer 2016 to take care of Talia, as well as Talia's two older siblings.
Just weeks after Miles took the job, she said, she started thinking about Talia's condition and how she might be able to help. She said she started researching living organ donation because "I was just curious, I guess", and she thought she might be a good candidate because she knew her blood type was O, which is compatible with all other blood types, according to the American Red Cross.
Almost immediately, Miles said, she knew she wanted to see if she could do it.
She said she talked to her own mother, then prepared to sit down with Talia's parents.
"I was nervous for some reason - I'm not sure why," Miles said about the conversation with Farra Rosko. "I just told her I had done some research, and I wanted to fill out the paperwork to see if I was a match."
The first thing Rosko asked her was whether she had spoken to her own parents about it.
"This is a serious thing," Rosko said she told Miles. "This is not like donating blood."
"I was very taken aback," Rosko told The Post. "I didn't know that she was this selfless - I've come to find out that this is who she is. She really is an angel on earth; I know that sounds silly, but she really is."
Over the next several months, Miles underwent rounds of testing to determine whether she was eligible to be Talia's donor. When she discovered she was, she made a "surreal" sacrifice, Rosko said.
When Talia was 9 weeks old, Rosko said, her pediatrician noticed that her eyes "were off" and sent her to a specialist for further testing and a liver biopsy. It was determined that the infant had biliary atresia.
Rosko said Talia's central bile duct was "obliterated" and that she was eventually put on a transplant list, though Rosko explained that it can take much more time to find a liver for a small child.
The Roskos met Miles about the same time their daughter was placed on the list.
On January 11, medical teams removed a portion of Miles' liver at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and rushed it next door to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where they implanted it in Talia.
"Once they had taken [the piece of] the liver out, they told us," Rosko said. "That's a pretty powerful moment. When it was happening, it was surreal."
The surgery was a success. Talia's mother said the baby girl will be able to taper off medications over the next year, though she will likely have to take anti-rejection drugs the rest of her life.
Miles, a college student studying special education, said she has a five-inch scar and can never again donate part of her liver, even if it's a perfect match for one of her own family members in the future. But she said she doesn't mind.
After their surgeries, she said, Talia smiled at her, and "it just made everything worth it."
Rosko said that she doesn't know what would have happened to her daughter if Miles hadn't come into their lives when she did.
"I think people need to know that prayer does work, angels do exist and miracles happen every day," she said. "I don't know where we would be without Kiersten."