Born after Daddy died
Wednesday 20th June 2007
The bedroom floor was covered in clothes.
'Remember this?' I grinned, holding up a black shirt with a white collar and cuffs. 'Wayne wore this on our first date. It was his pulling shirt!'
'He always did think he was a hit with the ladies,' laughed Wayne's best mate, John Lawton, 32.
Beside him, his wife, Jo, 28, sifted through a pile of bright T-shirts.
'Wayne got these in Florida last year,' she sighed. 'He bought so many clothes, he had trouble closing his suitcase, remember?'
Memories. That's all we had now. It had been two months since my husband, Wayne, had died from a brain tumour. Since his diagnosis three years earlier, he'd battled hard, going through an op and countless sessions of chemotherapy, but to no avail. What had made it all the more heartbreaking was that we were expecting our first child.
When he'd passed away, I'd been 26 weeks' pregnant. He'd lived long enough to know I was carrying a little girl and to help me choose her name, Amelia. Now, with six weeks until I was due, we were having a clear-out.
'You OK?' John asked.
'Fine,' I nodded.
I decided to keep Wayne's 'pulling shirt' and a couple of his favourite beanie hats. The rest I piled into bin bags to take to the charity shop. It was heartbreaking, but it was time to move on and plan for our baby girl's arrival.
I'd bought a pram, a car seat and a little crib, but there was still lots I needed — a changing table, a new chest of drawers, more Babygros, nappies, creams, talcum powder…
'There's plenty of time,' my mum, Linda Horne, 55, insisted.
But was there? A few days later, I woke up so swollen, I looked like a huge marshmallow. At the doctor's, the midwife took my blood pressure. It was a little high so she sent me to Pembury Hospital in Tunbridge Wells.
There, I was monitored for a few hours before being sent home.
'I just need rest,' I told my mum and Wayne's mum, Ann Vandra, 43.
'You won't have to lift a finger,' they insisted.
I appreciated their help, but I couldn't help wishing it was Wayne fetching me drinks and rubbing my swollen ankles. Mind you, knowing Wayne, he'd probably just have laughed at my new puffed-up figure.
I could just hear him now: You look like you've been inflated with a bicycle pump! Oh, I missed our silly banter. Even in the hours before Wayne died, we'd been joking around. As he'd slipped into a coma, I'd snuggled close and whispered: 'Give me a miracle pain-free birth or I'll fart on your grave.'
I know he heard me and he'd have been laughing inside.
Now, feeling Amelia wriggle, I was praying for that easy birth more than ever. But the following week I was even more swollen. The midwife saw me at home.
'Your blood pressure's way too high,' she said, sending me back to the hospital.
I was admitted and given tablets to bring it down. Thankfully, a scan the next morning showed I was fine. The following lunchtime, Mum popped in to take me out to lunch.
'I'll check the baby's heartbeat before you go,' the midwife said, linking me up to the monitor.
I could tell by the look on her face the results weren't good. She summoned a doctor for
a second opinion.
'What's wrong?' I demanded.
'The baby's heart rate is slowing,' the midwife explained. 'Have you felt her move recently?'
'Come to think of it, no,' I replied, starting to panic.
'Don't worry, everything's going to be fine,' she insisted.
But I was whisked off to the labour ward and minutes later, a team of six doctors arrived.
'We're giving you a Caesarean now,' one of them announced.
'What?' I gasped, scared.
Please, please don't say fate would be so cruel as to rob me of my daughter, too…
'I want Wayne,' I sobbed.
'He's here with us,' Mum comforted me.
As Wayne's parents paced the corridor outside, Mum sat beside me as my lower half was numbed and the doctors tugged at my stomach. Amelia was transverse, lying across my stomach. It took the doctors 25 minutes to pull out her tiny 4lb 1oz frame.
Finally I heard a little squawk and for a few seconds, Amelia was placed on my shoulder.
'My little girl,' I wept in relief.
Because she was so small, she was whisked off to an incubator while I was sent to the high-dependency unit to recover. It was 11am the next day before I was finally able to see my baby. She was breathing on her own, so I was allowed a quick hold.
'She's tiny,' I said to the midwife. 'Her fingers and toes look too big for her body.'
'She'll grow into them,' the midwife chuckled.
Within three days, Amelia was out of the incubator. Another day, and she was brought up to the ward to be with me. It was then the midwife told me how critical the birth had been.
'If I hadn't checked her heartbeat when I did, she'd probably have been stillborn,' she said. 'As well as lying transverse, the umbilical cord was wrapped round her neck.'
My blood pressure had been so high, I'd been in danger of suffering a stroke, too.
'It's a miracle!' I gasped.
Then I remembered what I'd said to Wayne as he lay dying. I'd asked for a miracle, pain-free birth — Wayne had given me both. With the emergency Caesarean, I'd felt no pain, and Amelia's life had miraculously been saved.
'Wayne was there at the birth,' I told everyone. 'I guess I won't fart on his grave after all!'
After two weeks in hospital, I brought Amelia home. Both sets of grandparents are thrilled with their granddaughter. Ann, and Wayne's stepdad, Gish, 42, are glad they still have part of Wayne to love. And so am I. It's hard to say who Amelia looks like yet, but Wayne's personality is definitely shining through. When I'm blowing raspberries or pulling funny faces, she creases her brow and gives me that familiar 'You're such a plonker' look! It's Wayne through and through.
Read other stories of triumph over tragedy, exclusive to Pick Me Up:
Mangled in a fish grinder while pregnant
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