ON The Cover
For Michelle Roper, 33, weight loss came at the ultimate price...
Mum’s guilt: Gastric bypass killed my twins
Back when I was young, tucking into a greasy Chinese takeaway seemed part of a normal evening. Crispy pancakes, sweet and sour chicken… OK, so I knew food like that was bad for you but surely after a couple of salads here and there, I’d lose it, wouldn’t I?
Yet as the years passed, I never did lose weight and it seemed easier to keep eating what I enjoyed. By the time I was 19, I weighed over 20st.
By then I was married and had become a mum to a little boy, Tyler. Two years later, in 2005, I had another boy, Trayvonn, and then Tobias in 2007.
Only by now my eating was out of control. I was 5ft 5in, but tipped the scales at 28st. Between the tantrums and bottle feeds, my family-sized bar of Dairy Milk at the end of the day felt like an essential reward.
By 2008, my marriage had crumbled, but that New Year’s Eve I met Mike at a party. In November 2010, we moved into a house in Sheffield together along with the boys.
Although Mike was like a father to them, we still longed to have a child together. But after suffering a string of miscarriages, hormone tests revealed that, at 29st, my weight was stopping me from conceiving. The only option was to slim down. Yet no amount of dieting or exercising seemed to work.
Drastic measures
In May 2011 my GP put me on a special course of dietary pills, but when I’d only lost 4lb in three months, I grew desperate.
Then my GP suggested a gastric bypass. Thrilled, I told Mike. ‘It will make me thin and sort everything,’ I said.
He was worried. Surgeons would cut away the majority of my stomach and leave me with an egg-sized pouch so I could only eat small amounts. But to me, it was the quick fix I needed.
When I came round from surgery, I had a sharp, stabbing sensation under my ribs. When it kept returning in the months afterwards, so intensely it left me curled up on the floor, I knew something wasn’t right. But doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong.
Meanwhile, I was losing weight astonishingly fast. By August 2012, I weighed 15st. Then I fell pregnant. Mike was thrilled and I was too. In July 2013, I gave birth to Leo. With the help of the gastric bypass, my body bounced back and by the time Mike and I married in April 2014, I was wearing a size 14.
Although I had excess skin on my belly and legs and was still suffering pains in my side, life couldn’t get any more perfect… or so I thought.
Then a month later, I missed my period again. When those two little lines appeared on the pregnancy test I couldn’t believe my eyes. And the good news just kept coming.
At my 12-week scan, the sonographer revealed we were expecting twins. Mike looked like he might fall off his chair!
We found out they were boys, so we chose the names Charlie and Cameron. I was concerned about the pains I was getting, but doctors said I was probably just eating too quickly.
But at 21 weeks I woke up in agony. Mike drove me to hospital and I was
‘My weight was stopping me from conceiving’
‘I woke up with a huge scar the length of my pregnant belly’
given an endoscopy – a camera down my throat – to see into my stomach.
Four days later I woke up in intensive care with a huge scar running the length of my pregnant belly. My heart surged with panic, but then the doctor arrived.
‘There were complications with your gastric bypass, which meant your bowel was able to become twisted,’ he said, explaining that this had been causing the stabbing pain in my side. Most of the time, it corrected itself. Only, this time it stayed twisted, cutting off the blood supply to my digestive system.
‘Most of your bowel has died,’ the doctor said. ‘We had to remove 80% of it.’ But the doctor added my twins were safe and my body slumped with relief. That was all that mattered.
Tragedy in hospital
I stayed in hospital with an infection and, two weeks later, when Mike was visiting, I felt a strange sensation between my legs. Mike lifted the blanket to look and seconds later he was holding a tiny baby. Reaching up, I hit the panic alarm. A minute later, the second baby was born. But before I’d had a chance to see my babies, they were rushed off. ‘What’s happening?’ I screamed. But it wasn’t until two hours later that a midwife said how my infection had triggered early labour. At 24 weeks, the boys were dangerously premature.
‘We’ve transferred Charlie to a specialist ward in another hospital,’ the nurse said. ‘But we don’t think Cameron is going to make it.’ She placed my little boy in my arms and Mike and I watched as our baby’s chest stilled. He died in my arms.
Mike tried to keep me strong and we focused all our attention on Charlie. I was too ill to go to the hospital to see him, but Mike visited. Then, three days later, when Mike came to see me, I could tell he had bad news. ‘I’m so sorry, they don’t think Charlie’s going to recover,’ he said. ‘They’ve asked that we consider turning off his life support.’ It went against every instinct in my body, but reluctantly I agreed.
Both my babies had gone and a week later, we cremated them. I carried their tiny coffins on my lap as Mike pushed my wheelchair.
I was kept in hospital and yet, three months after losing the twins, I weighed just 6st. Doctors fitted a feeding tube and by March 2015, I’d put on enough weight to go home.
But I felt cheated. I’d longed to be slimmer, yet the bypass had robbed me of my twins. It didn’t seem fair.
Two years on, I’m still only able to eat small, plain meals. My weight’s stable at 10st but I need 50+ tablets a day to combat constant chronic diarrhoea and sickness.
I’ll never get over losing Cameron and Charlie. I spent too long not realising what over-eating was doing to me. I just wish I’d known the terrible price I’d end up paying.