ELLIE'S GIFT

Lucy Livesey, 36, found a way to channel her grief to help others going through baby loss

- 

We're having a girl!' my husband Rick, then 29, shouted as he spun me around and pink confetti showered down around us. It was March 2016 and I was 14 weeks pregnant with our first baby. Rick had kept the sex a secret, so I could enjoy the surprise with friends and family at our gender reveal party. After celebrating, we agreed on the name Ellie for our girl. Then, at my 20-week scan, I was told I needed checks on the baby's heart. It wasn't unexpected; my twin brother Ashley had died aged 15, 12 years before. Running on the athletics pitch, his heart had stopped and he'd collapsed, dying instantly. It was explained as sudden adult death syndrome (SADS).

The following months had been unbearable. We'd been so close, I'd felt as though I'd lost a limb. Our older sister Michelle, then 25, had moved out, so it was just me and my mum, Julie, then 45, and my dad, Gary, 45, and an empty space where Ashley once was. But the emotional support I got from a local counsellor helped me through. So much so that when I left school, I trained as a psychiatric nurse so I could help others through their darkest times.

It was fulfilling, but I couldn't wail to take on my next role as a mummy.

Rick and I had already taken a hypnobirthing course and now, doctors wanted to make sure Ellie wasn't going to have any heart problems, like Ashley. Though his heart condition hadn't been hereditary, they wanted to run checks as a precaution. But following a scan at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester weeks later, the consultant had awful news. Ellie's heart hadn't developed properly. The next three weeks were agony as we had scans and waited for answers.

FEELING BROKEN