I WISHED MY BABY back to life
The book said that thoughts change lives. Could they also save my boy?
My seven-week-old son, Liam, was screaming as though in terrible pain. When I tried to pick him up to comfort him, it only seemed to make him worse.
He hadn’t seemed right for a couple of days, but I’d been sent home from the GP twice and told nothing was wrong with him. The health visitor who’d seen him just hours earlier had insisted he was fine too.
‘You’ve got a healthy baby. Just enjoy him!’ she’d said.
So now, although my instinct was again telling me something was badly wrong, I didn’t know what to do.
A moment later Liam started shaking violently.
‘You need to get him to hospital, Mum,’ my eldest, Harry, then eight, begged.
When we arrived at Redditch hospital the staff were shocked.
‘Why didn’t you bring him in earlier?’ they asked, rushing to help Liam.
‘I tried,’ I stammered. ‘No one would listen...’
Liam was given a lumbar puncture and diagnosed with meningococcal meningitis, a bacterial form of meningitis, a serious infection of the thin lining that surrounds the brain and spinal cord. In the hours that followed Liam’s heart stopped beating four times.
‘Your son is fighting for his life,’ a doctor explained.
‘Should I call my husband?’ I asked. ‘He’s working away in China.’
‘He needs to come home,’ the doctor nodded solemnly.
I knew then that they thought we’d lose our lovely boy. I couldn’t take it in.
Liam had seemed like a miracle right from the start. I was born with two wombs and, although Harry had been a surprise, it had taken my husband Colin and I seven rounds of IVF and painful miscarriages to conceive Ava.
Then Colin and I had decided we’d like another, so I’d gone back to the fertility clinic only to discover I was already pregnant! Liam arrived four weeks early in June 2010 and battled pneumonia, but he’d been a fighter and after three weeks we’d been able to bring him home.
We loved him so much. But now, at just seven weeks old, it looked like we might not get to see him grow up.
My mum came to join me at the hospital, bringing a bag of clothes and bits she’d collected for me from home.
‘I found this too, in case you need something to read,’ she said handing me a copy of the best-selling book The Secret which my friend, Helga, had given me a few years earlier.
I’d heard Oprah Winfrey talking about it and knew it was all about the so-called Law of Attraction, where your thoughts directly changed your life.
‘It really works,’ Helga had insisted, going on to list a few things she’d ‘manifested’ into her life using the technique.
I’m not a big reader and at the time I hadn’t seen how a book could change the way
I’d feel, so I’d never got round to reading it.
Finally, Colin arrived home from China. He’d got on the plane not knowing whether his son would still be alive at the end of the flight and he looked as broken as I felt.
Not long after he got back I picked up The Secret and began to read. I’d only started it to take my mind off the waiting. But the explanation of how everything was energy and how positive thinking could make positive things flow into your life made real sense to me.
A few chapters in the book suggested that when you were feeling negative you list 28 things you felt positive about.
At first, sitting by Liam’s hospital bed as he fought for his life, thinking up 28 positive things seemed a tall order... But I took out a pen and notepad and got to work.
I’m grateful Liam managed to let me know something was
Colin looked as broken as I felt
wrong. I’m grateful Harry convinced me to get him to the hospital. I’m grateful I managed to get hold of Colin and he made it home...
Before I knew it, I’d managed the whole list. And after I’d finished I tried to stay grateful, smiling and thanking the staff whenever they came in to help.
Amazingly Liam pulled through and after four weeks in hospital he was allowed to leave.
‘I thought we’d be having a very different conversation today,’ the doctor said as he discharged Liam, admitting he hadn’t expected him to survive.
‘Is that book you’re always reading The Bible?’ he asked.
I shook my head and explained about The Secret.
‘Well, it’s obviously worked for you,’ he smiled.
I was already a total convert to The Secret when Liam got diagnosed with meningitis again three years later. This time it was the pneumococcal form of the disease, meaning a different bacteria was to blame and the doctors didn’t know why he’d got it again.
I reached out to Skye, the daughter of The Secret’s author, Rhonda, who I’d been in contact with since I felt the book had helped the first time.
‘Me and Mum and a few others are going to go into the lemon orchard at Mum’s estate and think positive for Liam and do some affirmations,’ she said. Picturing them chanting helped me remember to be positive.
That night though, Liam looked so ill and tired it broke my heart. ‘You’ve fought a good fight, love,’ I told him, tears in my eyes. ‘No one will blame you if you go.’
Amazingly, during the middle of the night Liam turned, smiled and reached out his hand.
‘I love you,’ he said.
In floods, I knew I had to stay positive and grateful. And again Liam baffled the doctors by pulling through.
Unbelievably he faced a different strain of meningitis, streptococcal meningitis, another two years on, in 2014. Again, we stayed positive and again he pulled through.
His brushes with the disease have left him with health issues. But if ever a child lives the principles of The Secret, even without having read it, it’s Liam.
Now 10, he’s such a happy boy, always smiling. And he won’t take no for an answer! When he was told he’d never ride a bicycle, he kept believing and proved everyone wrong.
I think kids naturally know how to do The Secret – better than most adults. They don’t know about ‘no’ and ‘can’t’.
As a family we’ve raised £180,000 for Meningitis Now via our charity fund, Liam’s Smiles. And we still use The Secret all the time. My copy is now falling apart as I’ve read it so often! I take it everywhere with me.
Colin, a professional footballer, even used it to get back onto Ireland’s national football team.
‘I’m going to play for my country again,’ he told me.
‘I’m going to do The Secret.’
Sure enough, within a year he was back on the national squad – after a seven-year break!
Sometimes it’s hard to stay grateful when you’re living with doubt, negativity or fear.
But we’re proof that positive thinking really can achieve amazing things.