In my experience Told she might never walk… now my daughter is a model
Julie, 41, wife of ex-footballer Phil Neville, was determined to prove their doctors wrongé
Determination is a trait that runs deep in our family, and nobody has more of it than my daughter Isabella. when she was born doctors said she’d never walk. But three years later, as I watched her wobble from one foot to the other across the living room, I knew this little girl could achieve anything.
My husband Phil and I were delighted when we discovered I was expecting Isabella in October 2003. We’d had our son Harvey just 15 months earlier and couldn’t wait to give him a sibling. But, early one morning in January 2004, when I was 28 weeks pregnant, I woke to find the bed sheets soaking wet.
Phil was away at a training camp in Dubai with Manchester United, so I’d brought Harvey into bed with me. At first, I thought he’d had an accident. But as I got to my feet more water gushed to the floor – and there was blood, too.
Terrified, I called my sister. I screamed at her to come quickly, then in the next moment I was pulling a bleary-eyed Harvey out of bed and getting him dressed. ‘If the baby comes today it will die,’ I told my sister when she arrived 50 minutes later.
A nurse met us at the door of the hospital, and as my sister looked after Harvey, I was taken straight to a treatment room where an obstetrician did a scan.
The results showed my waters had broken – and I was going into labour. The doctors explained that my baby was stable and would continue to grow if they could halt the process. That meant pumping my body full of drugs. ‘Your husband needs to get on a plane home as soon as possible,’ she said.
I was moved to a delivery suite, where nurses crowded trying to find a clean patch of skin to insert IV drips and injections. I had no idea how long I’d be here, or if Phil would make it back in time for the birth of our baby. Lying there, monitors beeping all around me, I’d never felt so alone. I tried calling Phil but he was on a plane and his phone went straight to voicemail.
My parents arrived shortly after and took Harvey back home. Phil finally arrived 18 hours later., but when the doctors explained what had happened, I don’t think he took it in fully. He sat next to me in silence, dumbfounded.
Emergency birth
As days passed, doctors tried to delay the birth to give our baby the best chance of survival. All I could do was will it to work.
At night, Phil slept on a camp bed in the corner of the room, and every afternoon
my parents would bring Harvey in to visit. Then, 10 days later, on 2 February 2004, I suffered a placental abruption – when the placenta tears away from the wall of the uterus, causing an internal haemorrhage and the oxygen supply to the baby to be cut off. The nurses managed to restore my baby’s heartbeat, but at 12pm I was rushed to the operating theatre.
Phil told me afterwards that our baby girl, Isabella, was born at 12:28pm – two minutes after I’d lost consciousness to the anaesthetic. She weighed just 3lb 3oz, and had been taken to the neonatal unit.
It was two days before I was well enough to see her and it was heartbreaking. She was so tiny and her little breaths were so frantic I worried her lungs might burst. But within a few days, Isabella’s lungs were able to work on their own. Doctors were amazed. But it was another 10 weeks before she could come home.
I hoped our nightmare was over. But as the months passed, Isabella struggled to develop. She choked on her food, and vomited up to six times a day. By 16 months, instead of crawling she’d slump on her side. Her breathing was erratic, and sometimes it would stop completely. Tests results, two months later, confirmed my worst fears – Isabella had cerebral palsy, a neurological condition that affects movement and muscle control.
Doctors warned us she might never be able to walk or even talk properly.
Defiant spirit
As Phil and I left the appointment, I was trembling. But I refused to believe the doctor’s words. Over the next few months, I installed rails all over the house and fixed Isabella’s favourite toys on the ends to encourage her to walk. ‘She will walk and talk one day,’ I told Phil.
We enrolled Isabella on a speech therapy course, and did physiotherapy exercises with her every day. At 21 months she said her first word: Harvey. Then at three years old, she took her first steps. It was an incredible moment.
At four she started school. And, while I worried about how the other children would react to the plastic leg splints she had to wear, at the end of the first day she came marching out into the playground with a big group of friends.
As she got older, she competed in swimming galas and running races – she refused to let anything hold her back. She wasn’t immune to cruel comments though. When I’d post family photos to Instagram, I’d be met with nasty remarks about her condition. Yet, for every cruel comment there were twice as many good ones saying how beautiful she was, and how she should work as a model.
I mentioned this to Isabella when she was 14, and her face lit up. ‘I’d love to try modelling,’ she said.
After sending some photos around to agencies, I received a call from Source Models, asking if Isabella would be interested in doing some shoots for them.
At first, Phil and I were wary. But Isabella was so excited. All her life we’d told her she could achieve anything. Why should we deny her this?
She was signed as the agency’s first less able bodied model, and has since appeared in fashion shoots and on TV. For now, modelling is a fun side project. But if Isabella did ever want to do it full-time I’d support her. I’ve seen first hand that she can do anything she sets her mind to. I couldn't be more proud of her.
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