‘WE ARE HEARTBROKEN’
COUPLE’S TWINS TRAGEDY
RACHAEL and Kirsty Hoyles were overjoyed when they found out they were expecting twins.
A successful sperm donation from a private clinic in Cardiff had allowed the pair to fulfill their dream of starting a family.
But tragedy was to follow when complications with both babies brought their parenting journey to a devastating end.
Now the couple are sharing their heartbreaking story so they can support other families going through similarly arduous times.
“We are heartbroken and would give anything to have our boys back,” said Rachael, 32. “But we know that’s not going to happen, so we decided to do the next best thing – help anyone else who has to go through this and try to make it more bearable.”
Rachael, who has been married to Kirsty since June 2017, fell pregnant at the first attempt following a sperm insemination at a clinic in 2018.
“We were allowed to choose a donor with similar characteristics to ours,” she added. “We decided to pick someone with similar eye and hair colour to Kirsty.”
After going through the procedure privately, they were then referred back to the Welsh NHS nine weeks into the pregnancy.
However, during the 12-week scan at Ysbyty Ystrad Mynach it was discovered that one of the twins was very small. A rescan four weeks later revealed the baby had a very rare birth defect called encephalocele.
It meant the baby’s skull had not formed properly and had caused part of the brain to protrude out.
Around one in 10,000 babies are struck down with it, but the cause remains a mystery.
“They [the hospital staff] just kept saying ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’ over and over again,” said Rachael, from Cwmcarn, near Newport. “We were told that the survival rate was not good.”
Just days later, their care was transferred to Bristol Children’s Hospital where the diagnosis of encephalocele was officially confirmed. But while they were there, further scans picked up anomalies with the other twin.
“They said they couldn’t find the stomach,” Rachael added. “We were now at a crossroads as to whether to continue the pregnancy, but we decided to let it run its course to see what happened.
“We had many, many scans in Bristol and we were also being seen in Newport too. It was a really horrible time. Neither of us could work while this was happening. At every appointment we would just sit there crying in the waiting room.”
The second twin was found to have a congenital diaphragmatic hernia, known for short as CDH, which meant the baby’s stomach had gone up into his chest, had crushed one of his lungs and pushed the heart to one side.
However, doctors said his life could be saved with an operation if he could hold on for a few weeks after birth.
“We were told he would survive in the womb as I was giving him all his nutrients through my placenta, but he would have to fight for himself for a while once he was born before they could put the stomach back where it should be.”
Rachael admits that the complicated pregnancy really tested their marriage.
“We were very supportive of each other. We just wanted what was best as a family. We had a lot of friends reach out to us who had disabled babies about how hard, but rewarding it all was.”
At the 22-week mark, just before Christmas 2018, Rachael and Kirsty were given the news they dreaded.
The twin with encephalocele, who they went on to name Bayden, no longer had a heartbeat. But to give the other twin the best chance of survival, Rachael would need to try to get to full-term with both babies still inside her.
“We had my mum, Kirsty’s mum and