Miracle mum Char-lee shares Louis’s birth story:

My pregnancy with Louis started normally, and we had an excellent 12-week scan with a big baby. Early on we agreed to name our baby after my husband’s father who had passed away several years before.

At around 20 weeks, I went on an airplane and remember my bottle of water crushing significantly and hearing an internal ‘pop’. Over the next few weeks I was slowly leaking fluid without realising it - I thought I might be having a case of weak pelvic floor and urinating slightly. However, this was my 3rd baby and the smell was familiar. I kept saying to my husband and mother “it smells like amnionic fluid”.

At 22 weeks I went for a morphology scan - luckily my mother came with me. At first the sonographer said the baby was looking good, but then said she was struggling to find much fluid. She wasn’t able to do 3D scans because it was so low. She said it was around 1.3cm and needed to talk to a Doctor.

Not long after the Doctor came in and told me I had lost all my fluid, that I would give birth immediately and that the baby would die. He suggested I terminate the pregnancy and went through all the horror stories of oligohydraminos. I was in shock and my husband was 8 hours away working. I rang him and then went off for more testing. They did a swab to see if I was leaking fluid but it was negative. The doctor who did that test gave me some hope - he said he had seen this before and some women go all the way to 38 weeks with maybe some breathing or positional challenges. I was sent home on bed rest to consider my options while my husband drove home. We had another scan in two days. At that scan the fluid was still low but I hadn’t lost any more. We had our low risk obstetrician again recommend to us termination and listed all the horror stories - including death and disability. I asked if the fluid could regenerate, as with my second son I had been PPROM but later in the pregnancy, and they had regenerated. She said no, they don’t regenerate. Regardless, my husband refused to terminate. He said “he hasn’t given up on us yet” and deep down I think he felt like losing the baby would be losing his father all over again. Our obstetrician referred us to a high risk Obstetrician. I am so pleased she did, as our new ob was extremely caring, highly experienced and calm. She reiterated the words of the other doctor - that she could guarantee anything but she had seen similar situations work out well.

I was placed on permanent bed rest at home, placed on antibiotics and had to stop working. I was given steroid shots and the hospital became my second home with weekly scans and monitoring. I slowly crossed off each day praying that a miracle would happen. All our family and friends were praying too. Soon I reached 24 weeks and viability.

Then the weeks started to pass by. At 28 weeks I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes, so I started monitoring my blood glucose. My next scan indicated that my ammoniac fluid was increasing. Soon I was put on insulin and by that time my fluid was back at 5cms. By 30 weeks, my Ob allowed me off bed rest for light activities. At 36 weeks, the baby was still breech and my Ob indicated his feet were tucked tightly. She said we would be having him my cesarean as it was too risky given the breech position and oligohydraminos. She didn’t want to go longer than 38 weeks, given the risk of stillbirth would increase. So the day was booked and our little Louis arrived.

When I first saw him I could see there was something wrong with his feet, that he had a flat head from being breech and torticolis. The paediatrician explained he was good, weighed in at 3.27kg but had talipes.

After 2 days in hospital, he was weighed and had dropped 500gms. The midwives were really concerned but I knew my milk hadn’t come in. I had to start bottle feeding to supplement him. One midwife also told me he would be disabled for life with his feet. We were referred to a club foot specialist. They told us that he had tailpes calcaneovalgus, or what could be rocker bottom foot, a very rare form of talipes that can sometimes spontaneously correct without the need for surgery. They suggested 6 weeks of plasters to reshape the foot following a reverse Club foot procedure. This helped a lot. Nothing could hold Louis back then. He was thriving, hitting all milestones and my 10 months he was walking. At 1 year and 9 months you can still see evidence of the talipes, but it’s 90% improved, he’s a good weight, talked early with good speech, no evidence of torticollis and super clever. A real joy to be around. I’m so pleased we didn’t terminate and it all worked out so well. Those prays made a difference - he’s truly a miracle.