Against ALL ODDS

Danielle Crooks brave boys were each born with a broken heart

- LOUISE BATY, LUCY LAING

Whenever I watch my sons Lennox, six, and Sonny, three, laughing and kicking a football around together, I feel incredibly lucky, and so does my husband Joe.

But there’s an ever-present sense of fear clouding our happiness, because our boys have been through so much already in their short lives – and there have been times when we thought we might lose them both.

Joe and I married in April 2017 and, after a smooth pregnancy, Lennox arrived safely at the New Forest Birth Centre, near Southampton, on 30 June 2018, weighing a healthy 7lb 4oz.

We were overjoyed, but, back home, when Lennox was three days old, he became floppy and listless, with spots of blood in his nappy. In a panic, we took him to A&E at Southampton General Hospital, and medics surrounded his bed as he struggled to breathe.

Within two hours, he’d been diagnosed with aortic stenosis, a serious heart condition that caused his main aortic valve to be too narrow.

It hadn’t shown up on antenatal scans, but now our baby was in multiple organ failure, fighting for his life. It felt like we’d been plunged into a nightmare as Lennox underwent heart surgery at four days old.

He recovered, and we took him home after two weeks, but he became increasingly breathless and was losing weight. By eight weeks old, he was so poorly, we were told he needed urgent open heart surgery.

Tearfully kissing Lennox goodbye on 30 August 2018, we willed him to pull through the 12-hour surgery. Thankfully, he did, but it was a tough recovery as he lay, so sad and pale in his hospital cot, surrounded by tubes and machines.

Tears of disbelief