Parents of an eight-week-old baby born with four complex heart conditions say she’s a ‘fighter’ proving everyone wrong. Haydn Meecham and Sabrina Gallagher were told they could end their pregnancy after discovering problems with their daughter Freya’s heart at a 20-week ultrasound.
She was rushed to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital within 24 hours of her premature birth at Royal Bolton Hospital, and her parents were told to “say goodbye” as their newborn was not expected to live. The family is now preparing to bring Freya back home.
But unable to feed without a tube or make a crying sound, Freya’s loving parents will need to provide their daughter with specialized care. “She keeps proving everyone wrong,” said Radcliffe’s Dad Haydn.
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“She is a fighter. She continues to exceed all expectations of her. She is a miracle.”
Sabrina, from Farnworth, suffered a ‘bad pregnancy’ with Freya, going through ‘one thing after another’. After the 20-week ultrasound, the couple were sent to St Mary’s Maternity Hospital in Manchester, where they were told their new daughter would need surgery for a heart condition when she was born.
Haydn, 31, said: “From there they said we had three options: wait and see if it clears up on its own, come back in eight weeks for another exam or we could be done. At that point we knew who she was, we couldn’t.” . Don’t even think about that third option.”
The couple decided to wait eight weeks for their next scan, but they were in and out of the hospital every week. They discovered that the umbilical cord was not working properly, leading to pre-eclampsia, a condition that can lead to pregnancy complications, and Freya had to be born before 34 weeks.
Freya had also not been feeding adequately due to the umbilical cord problem, and was born weighing just 3.5 pounds. She was intubated after being taken to Alder Hey.
Haydn said: “They called us the first day she was born and said ‘would you like to say goodbye because there’s a chance I won’t? Freya was born with four heart conditions, one of which was a hole in her heart.
His condition began to deteriorate in the hospital due to heart failure, while his lungs and kidneys began to fail. On March 6, she underwent open-heart surgery despite being underweight, because doctors believed it was too risky to gain weight for Freya to grow.
Mum Sabrina, 26, said: “It’s been a fucking nightmare to be honest. We had to sit and watch a tiny baby deteriorate and get worse.”
After her intubation, Freya’s larynx was damaged, leaving her unable to cry, while doctors fear she may not be able to speak. Freya is also void by mouth, with the risk of food entering her lungs, so Haydn and Sabrina have been trained to feed her.
Haydn said: “We’ve had training on her feeding tube, how to take her medication, we know how to hold her at an angle. When she cries we can’t hear her cry or laugh, we have to get a heart monitor.” to let us know when she is crying. It’s going to take a lot of care.”
While the couple have been at Alder Hey with Freya, their eldest children, nine-year-old TJ and four-year-old Nova, have been cared for by a family in Farnworth, whom Haydn and Sabrina have described as ‘heroes’. The family have had to arrange a new home with Bolton Council and have not been able to bring their new daughter home until it is ready.
They now need to buy specialist equipment to look after little Freya, which is an additional expense for her family as they face other bills, and after Royal Mail worker Haydn has been out of work since birth. He said: “We knew we thought we could prepare but we couldn’t prepare for it.
“There are so many ups and downs, every day you have to take the wins when they come. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. We couldn’t even touch our own daughter in case she got sick.”
Sabrina added: “We have the other two kids begging us to come home, they want their mom and dad, they want the family back together. It’s been horrible, it’s the worst experience I’ve ever had in my life.”
Haydn’s brother, Kieron Meecham, has set up a GoFundMe page to support Freya’s family as they move into their new home in Farnworth. Click here to obtain more information.
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