Our ‘miracle’ at the
THE grief of losing a child is unimaginable for most. But for Cath Ascroft, it is a reality she has had to live through five times.
After three miscarriages, a baby who was stillborn at 20 weeks, and tiny tot Hendrix who lived for just 12 hours after being born 14 weeks premature, heartbroken Cath had almost given up on having another child.
But then her prayers were finally answered with the arrival of baby boy Phoenix, now eight months – all thanks to a plastic band.
Cath, 43, says: “Losing five babies seems especially cruel, and it’s hard not to think of what we’ve lost.
“At times the grief has been overwhelming.
“Having Phoenix doesn’t take away from the loss – in some ways it makes it even more poignant to think about what might have been.
“But we are just thankful for our little miracle.”
Cath and partner Jonny Hall, from Southport, chose their son’s name as a tribute to their NHS guardian angel Dr Alice Bird, who made his birth possible. They are now also fundraising to support Ormskirk’s Maternity and Neonatal Unit.
Dr Bird, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Ormskirk Hospital, recommended rare keyhole surgery to place a synthetic band around the top of Cath’s cervix to prevent her going into premature labour again.
Cath says: “The name Phoenix is a symbol of rebirth and hope for us – but also to honour Dr Bird, without whom our little boy wouldn’t be here.”
Busy concentrating on her career as a journalist, Cath admits babies were never on her radar until she got pregnant by accident and had elder son Marley, now eight.
When Marley was two years old, Cath and Jonny, who runs a plumbing and electrical business, decided to extend their family and were overjoyed when a couple of months later Cath was pregnant again.
Everything looked fine until the day before her 20-week scan when her waters broke in the middle of the night.
“Within hours I’d delivered my baby,” she says. “I was in shock. When they brought him to us, a perfect tiny baby boy wrapped in a blanket, I didn’t know how to feel.
“I only held him for a short time, couldn’t process what had happened.
“We didn’t even name him – this little boy who’d never even had a chance at life.” The couple had a funeral for the baby but struggled afterwards.
Five months later, Cath discovered that she was pregnant but at 10 weeks she miscarried. “I tried to brush it off and pretend it hadn’t bothered me, taking one day off before going back to work,” she says.
The following year she found she was pregnant again. It was difficult not to panic, but the scans all looked normal.
And after 20 weeks into the pregnancy, Cath and Jonny felt confident enough to tell Marley he was going to be a brother.
But two weeks later Cath started to bleed heavily. “When we arrived at Ormskirk Hospital, my cervix was 7cm dilated,” she says.
“It seemed hopeless. At 22 weeks pregnant the baby surely couldn’t survive. Lying in my hospital bed I met Dr Alice Bird.
“I remember her asking if I knew what the likely outcome would be and me replying that I’m probably going to lose the baby.
“She said: ‘We aren’t quite there yet’. ”
Dr Bird said they could sew Cath’s cervix shut in the hope it would hold long enough for the baby to have a chance of survival.
Cath went for the surgery and was given steroid injections to strengthen her son’s tiny lungs.
She was also confined to bed rest. But at 26 weeks she went into labour and attempts to stop the contractions failed.
Baby Hendrix was delivered and Cath only caught a glimpse of him before he was rushed to a special care baby unit.
He weighed just 2lb. Within hours, Hendrix had deteriorated rapidly.
“That was the worst moment of my life,” says Cath.
“We stood watching as his vitals dropped and then they disconnected all his tubes and passed him to me.
“We watched him die in our arms – this perfect little baby we should have been taking home.”
“The staff were so supportive, giving us as much time as we wanted to spend with Hendrix, taking tiny prints of his hands and feet to go in a memory box for us.
“Marley took it particularly hard. He had gone to school a proud big brother, but by the time he came home he wasn’t.
“The next few months were a blur. That second funeral was heartbreaking – he was in the tiniest of coffins. But we had close family and friends to support us.”
Jonny and Cath were resigned to the fact they would never have another baby, but once again Dr Bird gave them a glimmer of hope.
She had found a rare keyhole surgery that could be done at St Mary’s Hospital in Manchester.
She believed a permanent band called a transabdominal cerclage could be tied around Cath’s cervix to keep it shut.