True-Life
Doc said our girl would die but they were'nt counting on our superhero
Chelsey Milby, 32
Standing side-on in front of my bedroom mirror, I stared down at my rapidly growing bump.
‘Look at the size of me already!’ I said to my husband Blake, then 33.
It was the summer of 2022 and I was 17 weeks gone with our third child.
Our first scan had shown one healthy baby.
‘But I swear they’ve got it wrong. I look like I’m carrying a litter!’ I said now.
‘Could you be further along than we thought?’ Blake suggested.
Surely not.
The pregnancy had come as a total surprise when our youngest daughter, Nova, was still only 4 months old.
Her sister Marley was 9, and we weren’t sure how we’d cope.
But now, despite my larger than expected bump, we couldn’t wait.
At another scan a couple of days later, the sonographer revealed we were having a girl.
‘Great, I’ll be even more outnumbered,’ Blake laughed.
Only then the doctor was called in to examine the screen.
‘There’s something very wrong,’ he said. ‘She won’t make it.’
Our baby had lymphangioma.
The rare congenital condition causes benign, fluid-filled cysts to form under the skin, because the lymph vessels stop draining fluid from the body.
Our little girl was swollen with them.
It’s why my belly was so big. The consultant painted a bleak picture, telling us our girl had zero chance of surviving more than a few minutes after her birth.
If she did she’d be on a ventilator, need a feeding tube and have no mobility.
In pieces, we refused their offer of a termination and left sobbing.
Back home I composed myself.
‘I’m going to love our baby no matter what. Even if we only have minutes with her.’
‘We’re in this together,’ Blake said, hugging me close.
Despite warnings not to, I googled ‘lymphangioma’.
Gasped as Docs said our girl weren’t countin images of babies with huge swellings on their head, neck, legs, arms and throat filled my computer screen.
Terrified, I spent the rest of my pregnancy praying for our baby girl. I didn’t dare buy a single sleepsuit. ‘The new baby might look a bit different,’ I tried to explain to Marley. ‘That’s OK,’ she nodded. By the time I was 33 weeks gone, I’d bloomed to 14st and had put on 5st 7lb.
I looked like I was having triplets and could hardly breathe, let alone walk.
I couldn’t sleep, I was sick all the time.
‘I can’t bear it any more,’ I told the doctor, who booked me in for an eme
