I know Jamie would approve of his best mate looking after me and our children

When Michelle gave birth to her tragic husband’s twins she was numb with grief, but marrying his best friend and having another child has helped her to find happiness again.

Life dealt Michelle Nicklin a harsh blow when she lost her husband to cancer, but it was doubly cruel because she was pregnant with their twin babies.

When 24-year-old Jamie, a chef, was diagnosed with terminal non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the couple made the brave decision to go ahead with IVF treatment using his frozen sperm and give him the family he desperately wanted.

Tragically, her husband lost his battle against the disease when she wasn’t even three months pregnant and Michelle, a widow at just 22, had to bring her new babies, a boy and a girl, into the world all by herself.

But now she has found happiness again – with a lifelong friend of Jamie’s.

She and Jamie had enjoyed a long friendship with Kevin Grantham and enjoyed regular get-togethers. They were both devastated by Jamie’s death.

And helping to support each other through their grief, Michelle and Kevin eventually fell in love.

They are now married and have a daughter of their own, four-year-old Kara. She was a bridesmaid at their wedding in August 2013, along with twins Hope and Johnny, now seven, who were also a bridesmaid and pageboy.

Michelle, 29, a care assistant who lives in Bicester, Oxon, with Kevin, 32, who works in sales, and the children, says: “I’ve finally found happiness again. When I lost Jamie, it was devastating and I never thought I would find such happiness again. I feel very lucky to have found love again.

“And its lovely that Jamie and Kevin knew each other for years. I know Jamie would approve of me marrying Kevin and that he is looking after our twins.”

A widow with her baby twins

Jamie was diagnosed with nonHodgkin’s lymphoma – a rare cancer which develops in the lymphatic system – a few weeks before he met Michelle.

Michelle says: “He was only 20 and really fit and sporty. He loved playing rugby and it seemed so hard to believe that someone so young and fit could have cancer.

“I’d known Jamie since I was a teenager and we’d always got on really well. But when we decided to get together and become a couple he told me that he’d just had some bad news.

“He’d had some tests because he hadn’t been feeling well and it showed that he’d got cancer. I couldn’t believe it at first. He’d always been so healthy.

“But Jamie was optimistic that he would get better soon. And I thought he would get better too. He was just so young and full of life – there was no way that he would let it beat him.”

Jamie began a course of gruelling chemotherapy Tragic Jamie with Michelle treatment. It was initially a success, but then further tests showed the cancer was back. He had a bone marrow transplant and radiotherapy but those didn’t work either.

Michelle says: “He was so strong throughout and he kept saying that it wouldn’t let it beat him. He was so determined.”

They got engaged and went ahead with their wedding in September 2006. The couple then decided to have IVF treatment to try and start a family. This was the only way as the chemotherapy Jamie was having could cause infertility.

Michelle says: “Both Jamie and I really wanted children. We knew that it wasn’t the ideal way to start a family – I hadn’t imagined it happening this way when faced with a future like this – but we decided that we would try anyway, despite his battle with cancer. Jamie was desperate to be a dad. Luckily, his sperm had been frozen before he had started chemotherapy.”

Friends and family helped with the cost of private IVF treatment and two embryos were implanted in Michelle’s womb.

Michelle says: “I was nervous in case it didn’t work and I just had to pray that it would. Then two weeks later, we made the thrilling discovery that the treatment had been successful and I was pregnant. I couldn’t believe it.

“We went for an early scan but there was another surprise in store for us. As I lay on the scanning table and the sonographer ran the scanner gently over my stomach, she turned and told me that she could see two heartbeats. I was actually pregnant with twins.”

The couple started making plans to raise them, but then when Michelle was 10 weeks pregnant, Jamie’s health started to deteriorate rapidly.

She told him she would always look after his babies, then he slipped away.

Michelle says: “I was devastated, I couldn’t believe that he was gone. We had been so happy celebrating the pregnancy and now only 10 weeks in I had lost him. But I knew that I had to be strong to look after our babies, so that’s what I did.

“I had two little lives growing inside me. They were the only things I had left of him and I had to take care of them.”

The twins were born in March 2008 at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. John weighed 5lb 9oz and Hope 4lb 10oz.

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