My baby had a SECRET TWIN

Sadie Brittle, 36, was trying to come to terms with the most painful of heartbreaks

- EMMA ROSSITER/CHARLOTTE NISBET

As I snipped away at my client’s hair, I tried to shake the overwhelming feeling of exhaustion that had suddenly washed over me.

‘I don’t feel great,’ I told a colleague as I lowered myself onto a chair.

As she ran to fetch me a glass of water, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. All the colour had drained from my cheeks. I looked and felt terrible.

It was April 2016 and that morning, I’d been to the hospital with my husband, Gary, 37, for my first midwife appointment after discovering I was pregnant four weeks earlier. We were delighted, and our three-year-old daughter Summer was so excited when we told her she was going to be a big sister. After the appointment, I’d felt a little funny as we’d headed home, but assumed it was just the flu I’d been fighting for the past few weeks.

Emergency surgery

Only, now, I was seriously having to fight the urge to fall asleep, and I was worried. It couldn’t be anything to do with the baby, could it?

As I started drifting in and out of consciousness, someone must have called Gary because I soon heard his voice beside me. ‘I’m calling an ambulance,’ he said, his panic very clear. I just about remember a paramedic talking to me, and Gary holding my hand, but otherwise it’s all blurry. The next time I came to, I was on the ward at Good Hope Hospital in Birmingham.

I’d had a scan and doctors were now saying I needed emergency surgery tostop me bleeding internally, which was putting both me and my baby in danger. It was so confusing – only that morning, the midwife had told me everything was fine. Before I knew what was happening, I was taken down to theatre. Three and half hours later, I was back on the ward with my surgeon explaining all.