11,000-mile race to be at my girl’s birth
Scots daredevil says running marathons is a walk in park compared with 11,000-mile dash to get home for birth of premature daughter. Jenny Morrison hears his remarkable story
HE HAS taken part in the world’s toughest air race – flying 1250 miles down the west coast of America in a motorised paraglider.
He has cycled from London to Paris in less than 24 hours.
And he has run a marathon through the tropical forest and dusty villages of Sierra Leone.
But the most difficult race of Harrison Waugh’s life was the 11,000-mile dash across the world he had to make to get to hospital in time for his daughter’s unexpected early birth.
The 32-year-old engineer – known as Harry – was in a supermarket in Singapore when his wife Louise, a former Team GB modern pentathlon athlete, called from Scotland to tell him her waters had broken seven weeks earlier.
Months of planning around Harry, who worked in Singapore, being at home in Perthshire with Louise for the last stages of her pregnancy went out the window when she went into labour at just 33 weeks.
As Louise made her way to hospital, Harry headed to the airport and booked himself on the first flight back to Scotland not knowing if he could get home in time for his first child’s birth.
He arrived in time for the safe delivery of daughter Charlotte, who spent her first days of life in neo-natal care.
Now Harry plans to thank the charity that supported his family following the early delivery by running the world’s most physically demanding foot race – the Marathon Des Sables.
Harry, who works in the oil industry, said: “Before Charlotte’s birth, I had never given any thought to what happens when a baby is born prematurely and just took it for granted that Louise would be pregnant for the full nine months.
“But then Louise’s waters broke early and suddenly we were in this whole new world that we knew nothing about. To be in Singapore at the time when Louise was in Scotland wasn’t ideal.
“I found out about Louise’s waters breaking while I was in the supermarket and just jumped in a taxi – shopping and all – and headed straight to the airport.
“I booked my flight while in the taxi. It took a few hours to get on a plane, then I was 16 hours in transit on an Emirates flight from Singapore to Dubai, then Dubai to Glasgow, before jumping in a car to Dundee.
“I got from the supermarket in Singapore to Louise’s bedside in 20 hours or so.”
Thankfully for the couple, Louise didn’t go into full labour until 11 days later and Harry was by his wife’s side when Charlotte was born in March 2017 weighing 5lb 7oz.
Harry, who now works in
Esbjerg, Denmark, but returns to live with his family in Perthshire every weekend, said: “Louise and I got married in 2016 and Charlotte was a honeymoon baby.
“We’d been talking about whether Louise wanted to move to Singapore when we found out she was pregnant.
“At the time there were lots of media reports about the Zika virus – which can affect unborn babies – and there had been cases reported in Singapore.
“The risk was probably very low but when you’re having a baby even a one per cent risk of something harming your baby feels like a 100 per cent risk.
“It was an easy decision for Louise to stay in Scotland to have Charlotte and then come out to
Singapore for her maternity leave The plan was that I would be home in time for Charlotte’s due date but in the end she made her appearance six weeks earlier that advertised.”
When Harry arrived in Glasgow he was picked up and taken straight to see Louise at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee.
Doctors explained that Louis waters had not completely broken but were leaking. They warned the couple it was likely she would go into full labour soon.
Louise, 34, was given steroids to help strengthen her unborn baby’s lungs.
Harry said: “When thing started happening it all happened very quickly, which was pretty scary, and Charlotte was born.
within four hours. We were told there was a team outside the delivery room door and if they didn’t hear our baby scream when she was born then lots of people would come in.
“Thankfully, Charlotte was born screaming her head off.”
Charlotte was taken to the neo-natal unit, where she was given treatment for jaundice and put on a tube to help her feed and gain weight.
Harry said: “We had all these different medical staff laying out a range of very serious potential complications that could happen when a baby is born prematurely.
“Louise was always so fit, healthy and active – she is a PE teacher, who was in the modern pentathlon training team for the
Beijing Olympics. I’ve always been fit and active too, so naively we hadn’t considered that anything might go wrong in the pregnancy and had just presumed we would have a healthy baby. Now we know it doesn’t always work like that.
“It was then we came across the charity Bliss. They offered advice, comfort and small touches that made a big difference. Something as simple as a Mother’s Day card and little knitted hat would turn the worst of days around.
“Reading leaflets and stories of other families made us realise we weren’t alone and that support was available should we need it. Many families are not as lucky as us and in those cases the work done by Bliss is even more valuable.” Charlotte recovered well from her early arrival and was allowed to go home after 10 days. Almost three years on – and with second daughter Willow born 10 months ago – Harry now is training for the Marathon Des Sables, where he will run 155 miles across the Sahara over six days in heat of up to 50C. He hopes to raise more than £3000 for Bliss. He said: “In 2015 I took part in Icarus – the world’s toughest air race – where I had to fly from Seattle to Sacramento over 10 days in what is pretty much just a glider with a lawnmower-type engine on your back.
“Fifty people signed up for it, 25 of us made it to the start and only four of us finished, which shows what a challenge it is.
“The year earlier I ran the Sierra Leone Marathon and the year before that I took part in London2Paris24 where you cycle the 284 miles between the two cities in less than 24 hours.
“To train for the Marathon Des Sables I’ve been doing long runs in the cold and dark in Denmark – which is about as far removed from what it will be like running through the hot desert, but I’m looking forward to the challenge.”