Borrowed time

Claire Curtis, 30, from Plymouth, hopes her kids will remember her no matter what…

- HOLLY SAWYER

Pulling the biggest frown I’d ever seen, my three-year-old daughter Millie was very unhappy indeed.

It was September 2017, and my partner Tom, 34, and I had just told her she was going to have a baby brother.

‘I wanted a sister!’ she wailed. Millie loved dressing up as Rapunzel and had dreamed of a little sister who would swish beside her in a princess costume.

‘You can still play games with your brother,’ Tom laughed.

When Charlie was born in February 2018, Millie changed her tune – she was besotted!

But giving birth to Charlie hadn’t been easy.

‘I can’t seem to push very well,’ I said to Tom during labour.

I was confused – when Mille had come along in October 2014, I’d had no problems.

This time, though, I felt so weak, and really struggled.

I did it, though, and felt an overwhelming rush of love as soon as I saw Charlie’s tuft of blond hair.

He weighed 8lb 11oz, but I’d needed to be cut quite a bit so he could be born, so instead of getting immediate skin-to-skin cuddles, he was handed to Tom while I had a blood transfusion.

Hours later, despite feeling so tired, I smiled and took Charlie into my arms.

Back home, fatigue continued to seep through me.

Must be the blood loss, I thought. But apart from breastfeeding Charlie, the only other thing I seemed to do was sleep. I just couldn’t shake off the exhaustion.

‘Must be because I’ve got two little ones,’ I reasoned with Tom.

But, two months after Charlie was born, I felt a dull ache at the back of my eye.

The dull headaches persisted over the next few days, and then weeks.

One morning, at 2am, I woke up feeling sick.