Saturday, June 8, 2013

The most precious baby in Britain: How Emily-Kate's parents endured 19 miscarriages, IVF, dozens of visits to A&E, 10 different obstetricians and 14 years of heartache before her miracle birth

A family at last: Joanna and Steve Short with their baby Emily-Kate, who was born after the couple suffered a heartbreaking 19 miscarriages
A family at last: Joanna and Steve Short with their baby Emily-Kate, who was born after the couple suffered a heartbreaking 19 miscarriages
One of the most vivid memories Joanne Short has of the delivery room is of pulling the midwife close and firmly placing 14 years of hope and heartache in her hands.
‘I remember grasping her — probably too tight — and saying, “You have to realise this baby is VERY, VERY precious”,’ recalls 37-year-old Joanne.
‘Of course, that was a stupid thing to say, because every baby is precious. But I needed to say it.’
The midwife will not have needed reminding of how high the stakes were. Joanne’s medical notes would have told that terrible story.
This was a woman who had suffered 19 previous miscarriages, had been admitted to A&E on dozens of occasions and had been in the care of ten different hospital consultants in her quest to become a mother.
She had undergone several invasive operations, been injected with all manner of steroids and drugs, gone through IVF and put her life on hold for 14 years just to get to this point. This pregnancy itself had been tricky. Joanne had bled twice in the early stages, causing her to believe she was experiencing miscarriage number 20.
Yet incredibly, when she arrived at South Wales’s Newport hospital in the early hours of January 20 this year, this wasn’t a woman on the edge, but someone calm and focused, who steadfastly refused any pain relief lest it harmed her baby.
When little Emily-Kate was finally placed in Joanne’s arms, her husband, Steve, who had been with her on every step of this terrible journey, was the one who fell to pieces.
‘I was a blubbering wreck,’ he admits. ‘The tension in that room was so great. The pain and worry of 14 years was poured into that room.’
Today, Emily-Kate, the most longed-for baby in Britain, is four months old and as cute as a button. She gurgles and smiles as she is passed to and fro between her parents, as they tell their uplifting story in full for the first time.
The Shorts’ story actually begins before they met. At the age of 14, Joanne was diagnosed with endometriosis, a painful condition where the womb lining grows outside the womb and which can damage fertility. Her periods were excruciating, and her GP put her on the contraceptive pill to ease the pain.

By the time she met Steve in a pub in 1997 — he was visiting his native Newport on a break from university — she was 22. The couple met through mutual friends and rapidly fell in love.
By 1999 they had been living together for two years, had just bought their first home and were talking openly about how they wanted to have ‘lots and lots’ of children. Joanne became pregnant, but a few weeks later she started to bleed.
‘What I remember about that miscarriage was the physical pain as much as the emotional pain,’ says Joanne. ‘I remember being on all fours in agony. Steve didn’t know what to do.’
The couple took comfort in the fact that this pregnancy had at least proved that Jo could get pregnant, and they tried again the following year. Another miscarriage followed, at a similar stage. They tried again. Same result. They sought medical help, but were told they were just unlucky and should keep trying. Family life, everyone said, would just be around the corner.
By now, with Steve’s career in the banking sector flourishing, they had moved to a larger house and were planning a wedding.
‘We’d bought a new, four-bedroom house with a garden that was big enough for outdoor toys,’ Joanne remembers. ‘I’d set up a child-minding business, partly because I love kids, partly because I knew it would be compatible with having children of my own.
‘Everything in our life — house, car, job — was set up to accommodate a family. It’s all we ever wanted.’
Little miracle: Emily-Kate, the most longed-for baby in Britain, is today four months old and as cute as a button
Little miracle: Emily-Kate, the most longed-for baby in Britain, is today four months old and as cute as a button
By the time they got married, in 2003, Joanne and Steve had suffered seven miscarriages — giving a certain poignancy to the best man’s speech, which described them as ‘a wonderful couple who will one day make wonderful parents’.
Soon afterwards, Joanne became pregnant again, allowed herself to get excited — then woke one morning with a familiar crampy feeling.
‘It was the same story as before — the same pain,’ she says. ‘I actually got to recognise that feeling. I’d know, before I did any pregnancy test, that I was pregnant.
‘And I’d know, sometimes before the bleeding started, when I wasn’t pregnant any more.’
By now, Joanne was on a terrible treadmill. Over the next decade, she would suffer miscarriage after miscarriage, each pregnancy ending around the 8th to 12th week — each ‘ripping another piece of my  heart out’.
‘Every time, it feels like the end of the world,’ says Joanne. ‘Every time, I’d analyse what I’d done. Was it that cup of tea I’d had? Was it because I’d lifted the kettle? It was like being on a roller-coaster: elation and hope one minute; absolute desolation the next.’
She makes references to dates that today ‘mean nothing to other people but everything to us’ — the due dates of her lost babies.
While the couple were clearly grieving for their lost babies, they tried to focus on seeking help.
They sought out the country’s top experts, even visiting London’s  St Mary’s Hospital, a centre of excellence for recurrent miscarriage, in 2005.
Joanne says: ‘That was a disaster. We’d driven all the way from Wales and they greeted us with: “We have no record of you. Are you sure you have an appointment?” Luckily, I had a print-out. They couldn’t help anyway. The advice was: go away and keep trying.’
'I was a blubbering wreck': Steve was the one who fell to pieces in the delivery room as his daughter was born
'I was a blubbering wreck': Steve was the one who fell to pieces in the delivery room as his daughter was born
While Joanne was the one who experienced crippling physical pain every time she lost a baby, her husband was plagued by a sense of helplessness. ‘You watch her suffering and you want to take away the pain, but you can’t,’ says Steve. ‘You go along to all the appointments and tell yourself, “If we just keep going, this will be fine”, but there are moments when you think, “I cannot do this any more.” ’
A warm and open couple, the Shorts had started off telling friends and family about each pregnancy, and subsequent loss. But, eventually, they resolved to keep the pain to themselves.
‘You can’t bring other people down with you every time,’ says Joanne. ‘Once, I miscarried on the morning of a friend’s wedding. Of course, I couldn’t tell her. You can’t spoil someone’s big day like that.’
Constantly searching for answers, they sought out specialists, and second, third and fourth opinions. They pushed for doctors to ‘do something’, but were left devastated by the treatment meted out to them by some medical professionals.
‘I think it’s fair to say we have seen the best and the worst of the NHS,’ says Steve. ‘We owe everything to some doctors and nurses. Others, well, let’s just say it was a long fight.’
While they weren’t surprised by problems such as lost notes or long waiting lists, they baulked at being treated with apathy and even downright hostility.
‘Mostly, we were told quite politely  that there was nothing wrong with me, so we should just keep trying. But some doctors were downright rude,’ says Joanne. ‘One consultant said: “Well, what exactly do you want me to do about it?” I was flabbergasted. She was the expert. That’s why I was there.’
Another flicked through the copious pages of her notes, and openly questioned whether her miscarriages were in Joanne’s mind.
‘He didn’t actually seem to believe that I could have been pregnant so many times in the first place — and we’d only had six miscarriages when we saw him. He said: “Are you sure these weren’t imaginary pregnancies?” I couldn’t believe it.’
Hard road: Constantly searching for answers, the Snorts sought out specialists, and second, third and fourth opinions
Hard road: Seeking answers, the Shorts sought out specialists, and second, third and fourth opinions
The couple did succeed in securing two operations to remove scar tissue from Joanne’s womb. Then they went through a cycle of IVF.
‘We were told it was diagnostic — to see if an artificial cycle would show up anything of note,’ says Joanne. ‘I got pregnant, but miscarried as usual. That one hit us so hard.’
How on earth did they keep going after such suffering and anguish?
‘You don’t sit and say, “Well, after miscarriage number 12 we will stop.” You don’t analyse how much of your life has been on hold. That comes later. Now I do look back and think, “Wow!” ’
‘Our whole lives have been on hold,’ agrees Steve. ‘But in some ways, the stuff we were missing out on didn’t matter. Not being able to plan holidays wasn’t a big deal. We had travelled before. We’d had all those fun times, and we would have them again.’
The couple even fostered two children during this time. Despite the fact that the placement was difficult — the children were older, and from troubled backgrounds — it only strengthened their resolve that they wanted to have children of their own.
‘People said why not adopt? It was an option, but I think for us it was complicated by the fact that I kept getting pregnant,’ says Joanne. ‘My body was trying to do this. I suppose we felt so close, so often.’
Last year, they got a dog — something Steve sees as evidence that they had begun to accept, subconsciously, that they might never have children.
‘The plan was always kids, then a dog,’ he smiles. ‘Then we got Roxy. I suppose it was some sort of admission. The reality was that we were running out of time.
‘After each miscarriage, I would think: “OK, now we are 34, 35, 36…” You do start to think, “We cannot go on for ever.” ’
Joanne may well have, though. I ask if she had a cut-off point in mind and she shakes her head. ‘Would I have gone on until the menopause? I just don’t know,’ she says.
Mercifully, they will now never have to make that call.
Unforgettable moment: Steve holds Emily-Kate in the hospital, after waiting 14 years to hold his child
Unforgettable moment: Steve holds Emily-Kate in the hospital, after waiting 14 years to hold his child
Their faith in the medical profession was restored last year when they placed themselves — as a last resort — in the care of Cardiff-based consultant Richard Penketh.
He offered them pioneering surgery being trialled in Canada that involved cutting scar tissue in the womb back deeper than the usual 2.5mm — all the way through to healthy tissue.
He impressed the couple with his ‘can do’ attitude, and Joanne paid £2,000 to see him privately. Three weeks after her operation, Joanne was pregnant and, within 12,  she and Steve were being invited for a scan. She calls it their  ‘bingo!’ moment.
‘We’d never got to the point of seeing a baby on the monitor before, so when we did, and there was a heartbeat, well, it was the most wonderful thing in the world,’ says Joanne.
‘We allowed ourselves to hope. That’s how we got through the pregnancy — one day at a time. Whenever I went to the bathroom, I’d think “please, no blood”. Every night I’d go to bed thinking, “Let us get through another day.” ’
They told no one until they reached the 12-week stage — but then couldn’t hold it in any longer and broke the news in grand style at a family gathering. Steve had organised a slideshow of photographs — slipping the scan picture in as the final one.
‘It came up on screen and the room went silent. Someone asked, “Whose baby?” and then there was a collective intake of breath. Then tears came.’
They describe the pregnancy from there as ‘the longest six months of our lives’.
There had been one bleed early on, and another just after they told their family, but this time the worries passed. ‘I started to relax into the pregnancy,’ remembers Joanne. ‘Finally, we allowed ourselves to hope.’
They bought baby equipment, and decorated the nursery. ‘What came as a shock,’ says Steve, ‘was realising that we were suddenly having to worry about all the normal things people worry about in pregnancy, like: “Will the baby be healthy?” ’
Joanne went into labour in the early hours of January 20. She laughs as she describes breathing ‘like a steam train’, then experiencing ‘the most amazing feeling of calm’ as her tiny daughter’s cries rang out for the first time.
Amid the elation, Joanne felt an incredible sense of relief that her instincts had been right.

‘Our life had a baby-shaped hole in it — and now it doesn’t. She’s made everything complete’

‘People said, “Why didn’t you give up?” The answer to that is that I knew there was something wrong. I knew that Nature was trying to give us a baby — and that something just needed to be fixed. We are just so grateful that we found someone who wanted to help.’
And the family’s delight is shared by the medics who got them to this point. One of their most treasured gifts is a tiny pink cardigan knitted by the mother of the woman who carried out Joanne’s all-important weekly scans.
Four months on, the Shorts’ little miracle is no less precious. Joanne fusses about while she chats, taking Emily-Kate’s temperature and worrying about whether a mark on her neck is a rash.
If further proof were needed of how much joy Emily-Kate has brought, we need look no further than the fact that the couple are considering trying for another baby.
‘We’d love more kids, but don’t want to be greedy,’ says Joanne.
Indeed, the operation was so successful that doctors believe Joanne may be able to have another child in the next few years.
It falls to Steve to answer the question — rather redundant in the face of such devotion — of whether their 14-year struggle has been worth it.
‘Every awful minute of it,’ he says. ‘Our life had a baby-shaped hole in it — and now it doesn’t. She’s made everything complete.’
DAILYMAIL

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