‘My miracle baby was told she had two weeks to live - now we’re home’
BABY BORN WITH HOLE IN HER THROAT
A “miracle baby” who doctors believed would not survive more than two weeks after being born with a hole in her throat has finally been brought home after five months in hospital.
Millie Oxley was born via an emergency C-section procedure at Leeds General Hospital on September 8 last year, weighing 6lb 3oz.
Her mum Kirsty Oxley, of Bartonupon-humber, said she had suffered a “horrendous pregnancy”, worrying constantly about what would happen to Millie when she was born.
“The doctors had said she wasn’t moving as much in the womb as they would’ve liked,” she said.
“So they got her out within ten minutes.”
Millie was immediately assessed by neonatal nurses, who then tried to fit her with a feeding tube, which was unable to even reach her stomach.
That confirmed to medics that little Millie was suffering with esophageal atresia, a rare birth defect in which a baby is born without part of the esophagus, the tube that connects the mouth to the stomach.
Instead, the esophagus forms in two parts, with a gap in the middle. It meant Millie was unable to successfully feed herself.
She was too small to undergo the major surgery she needed to repair the problem, so she was left to grow for nine weeks before undergoing the procedure.
“After that operation, she had to be paralysed and sedated for two weeks, breathing through a breathing tube,” mum Kirsty, 30, said.
And things went from bad to worse as a leak at the surgical site of entry into her tiny body caused Millie’s lung to collapse.
Most patients would have expected a two-week stay in hospital after such a procedure – Millie and her mum were there for a total of five months.
It meant Kirsty only saw her eldest daughter Holly, now three, five times over that time while she was being cared for by Kirsty’s sister and brother-in-law.
As a single parent, Kirsty couldn’t even rely on the support of her mum, who lives in Manchester, because of lockdown.
“Obviously Covid didn’t help at all with all the visiting restrictions, but it was just so hard,” she said.
“I would’ve been lost without them. We’d gone from lockdown, where I had spent all my time with my daughter, to only seeing her around five times in five months, which just made everything harder.”
After months of treatment, Kirsty finally brought her baby home on January 26.
“She is my miracle baby,” she said. “I got told right at the beginning of her time in hospital that there had been some heavy bleeding, I rushed to the hospital and was told to prepare for the worst – that I would lose her.
“And at that point she was only two weeks old.
“But after all that surgery, I was just dreaming about the day she would get discharged and I thought it would never come.
“Now that it’s actually happened and we’re home, it’s a bit surreal.”
Kirsty is now hoping to raise money for the team of medics who helped Millie during her time in hospital.
■ Anyone who would like to donate to her fundraiser, visit www.leeds cares.enthuse.com/profile and search “Kirsty Oxley”.