My birth story...by Laura Hollinshead

When me and my partner found out that I was pregnant with twins we were over the moon.  Words could not describe the excitement.

Then, at a routine scan, one of the babies was diagnosed with a heart defect (Hypo-Plastic right ventricle). From there we were referred to St Mary’s hospital in Manchester where we made regular visits for scans on twin 1's heart by one of the cardiac consultants.

When we saw the cardiac consultant we were offered a number of options - one of them being to terminate the poorly twin which was never an option for me and Mark,  so we carried on with the pregnancy with no interference.

The day finally came and on 15th May 2007 I gave birth to twin babies at  Fairfield general Hospital, Bury, Lancashire. Dylan born at 18.43 weighing 6lb 2oz and Emma born at 18.57 weighing 4lb 5oz. It was a straightforward delivery - no complications, Dylan was taken straight away to scbu and I was able to hold and feed Emma for a couple of hours before she was then taken off to scbu. The special care baby unit looked after Dylan and Emma and we were able to bring them home after just 10 days. We cannot thank everyone enough for the level of care and consideration they gave us

However our joy was overshadowed by the discovery that Dylan had been born with the heart defect detected on the scans earlier. His condition was known as hypo-plastic right ventricle,  which meant that the valves on the right side of the heart had not formed.  We were told this would lead to organ failure - one by one his organs would start to fail as there would be insufficient oxygenated blood circulating round his little body to keep them alive. Without surgery he wouldn' t survive.

On the 28th May 2007 the special care midwife noticed on her routine home visit that Dylan had deteriorated and insisted he be admitted to the children’s ward. The following day he was transferred to Pendlebury children’s hospital and then the day after that to Alderhey children’s hospital in Liverpool.

On the 1st June 2007 Dylan was just 16 days old and he had to undergo 7 ½ hours of emergency heart surgery at Alderhey children’s hospital to place a BT shunt into his heart, to help the oxygen circulate the body. His recovery was very slow and he was given only a 20% chance of survival.

Dylan was put on heart and lung bypass and as a result suffered some kidney failure. He struggled to survive and suffered three seizures just before he was due to come home and we feared brain damage.

The surgeon who operated on Dylan said that Dylan’s heart was the size of his fist and in order to carry out the procedure he had to wear special glasses that magnified his heart by three times its size. It is amazing how wonderful these surgeons are and he worked on Dylan well into the night. He saved our babies life!
 
I am pleased to say that much to our relief Dylan came home on June 25th 2007 and to date his brain and kidney scans have proved no damage. He is our little miracle, however we know that his condition will deteriorate over the next few months and he will have to have further operations to repair his heart.

We are aware that his life will be different, he will always be weak and his growth will be slow, but he is in every other way perfect and we love him so much we cannot explain all of the emotion we experienced so far but we will never give up on him.

Dylan has defied all the odds and has survived the worst case scenario that we were originally given to us by the cardiac consultant at St Mary’s. Both Dylan and Emma are now reunited and our family is now complete, words cannot express how grateful we are to every one that helped save Dylan’s life.
We know that that this is just the beginning of Dylan’s journey.
 
I hope that our story helps others who are faced with a similar situation to Dylan because miracles do happen and it is amazing how strong these babies are they are little fighters we found that talking to people in a similar situation helps you come to terms with everything.

Thanks

Laura Hollinshead and Mark Tilley

Bury, Lancashire