A proud dad is celebrating his first Father’s Day with his miracle daughter whose lungs collapsed TEN times and heart stopped THRICE.
Little Alice-Anna Chapman started struggling to breathe just four hours after being born with a hole in her heart.
Her distraught parents Georgina and Andy watched in horror as her lungs collapsed ten times in three weeks.
And after frantically having her christened her heart stopped three times.
But doting Andy held her tiny hand almost constantly as she lay in a coma for six weeks and gently sang songs at her bedside.
She miraculously pulled through after surgeons ‘glued’ her lungs to stop them bursting and her proud dad was able to hold her for the first time, aged six weeks.
Alice-Anna is now ten months old and Andy, 40, a professional singer, said: “She really is a daddy’s girl.
“Just having her in my arms will be the best Father’s Day gift I could ever ask for.
“There were many difficult times when it looked like the world might be very different for us, and we nearly lost her.
“But I held her hand tight and sang her songs and our little fighter pulled through,
“Father’s Day will be extra special, but any day with our miracle baby is a sunny one for me.”
Wife Georgina had a normal pregnancy and thought everything was normal when Alice arrived on August 6, weighing 7 Ibs 6oz.
But just four hours after being they noticed she was making a grunting noise and tests revealed she wasn’t breathing properly.
She was transferred to Addenbrooke’s Hospital and put on a life support machine in an induced coma, and a scan revealed she had a hole in her heart.
The pressure of the much-needed air being pushed into her lungs caused them to “burst” and doctors warned she might not survive the night.
She also had pulmonary hypertension of the newborn, a life-threatening condition where the baby’s blood is forced away from the lungs.
The couple, who have another daughter Mia, five, had their newborn christened aged just two days before she was rushed to Great Ormond Street.
But her lungs collapsed another nine times and she had to be resuscitated three times in her first three weeks, as doctors battled to manage her complex condition.
“She needed the oxygen because of the problems in her heart,” said Georgina, who works in advertising.
“But having the oxygen was putting too much pressure on her lungs making them blow, and collapse.
“We once got a call in the middle of the night to say she had actually gone. It took them hours to bring her back and get her stable. We were terrified.
“The holes just would not heal and her lungs kept collapsing. We were watching her 24/7.”
Andy, also a personal trainer, added: “I would sit by her bed and sing to her most nights. I didn’t want her to be alone.”
Doctors decided the only was to save her was to coat her lungs with a ‘glue’ – in a procedure called a pleurodesis – which promotes white blood cells to repair the holes.
Miraculously the procedure worked, and after a week she was brought out of her coma, and opened her eyes for the first time, aged six weeks old.
Georgina said: “We were in tears. She wouldn’t let go on my finger – she was holding so hard.”
She went home to Broxbourne, Herts. aged seven weeks in September, and last month finally came off her oxygen.
Devoted Andy said: “I think it’s fair to say we can’t wait to spoil her rotten.
“She fought to survive and get through it all, and I remember that every time I hold her and sing to her.
“She is our little fighter and I could not be more proud of her.”
ENDS
