Baby Ivy weighed only 700 grams, but she managed to survive.
The story of 35-year-old Briton Laura Worsley is an example of how unprecedented perseverance and boundless faith in a miracle help, it would seem, in the most hopeless case. The woman who suffered 13 miscarriages did not despair and still managed to give birth to a child.
13 times Laura and her husband Dave were incredibly happy to learn that they were expecting a baby. 13 times their hearts were torn apart when Laura lost her baby.
Laura’s 11 pregnancies ended in the first trimester. Two more – at 17 and 20 weeks. With a difference of two years, the couple lost two boys – Grayson and Leo. Laura was beside herself with grief.
“What’s the point in my life if I can’t have a child,” she said.
The first miscarriage happened when she was 24 years old. The doctors suggested trying again. After the fourth pregnancy ended tragically, Laura was sent for examination. The woman was diagnosed with antiphospholipid syndrome – a pathology in which antibodies are formed in the blood that thicken the blood. The syndrome can be manifested by anemia, thrombosis, valvular heart disease. In a mother with antiphospholipid syndrome, the probability of premature birth is 30%, fetal growth retardation occurs in 40 cases out of 100. Another consequence of the pathology is thrombosis in the fetus.
Laura and her husband Dave
The couple was prescribed a high dose of folic acid, but this did not help. After a series of miscarriages, Laura went back to the examination. And now the doctors are announcing a new diagnosis: chronic histiocytic intervillositis is another pathology that forces the body to fight pregnancy by rejecting the fetus. By that time, Laura’s powers had run dry.
“After 13 miscarriages, I was no longer sure that I would want to try again,” she admitted. However, the professor who was treating Laura convinced the woman that it was possible to give birth with such diagnoses.
“I said to myself then:“ This is the last time, I can’t take it anymore, ”Laura recalls when she agreed to the 14th pregnancy.
The woman was prescribed a blood thinner to combat the first syndrome, and drugs to strengthen the lining of the uterus to fight the second syndrome.
For the 14th time, a woman was able to carry a baby up to 30 weeks. However, Laura’s water suddenly broke and she had to undergo an emergency caesarean section.
Little Ivy weighed only 700 grams at birth. The premature baby girl was immediately taken to the intensive care unit, and Laura and Dave had to wait three days before they could take their baby in their arms for the first time.
Ivy was brought home 11 weeks later. Now the girl is already 9 months old. The baby is getting stronger every day.
“Even now, after nine months, I cannot believe that she is really mine,” says the happy mother.