The Baby Who Never Got To Meet Daddy

Time was running out but there was one last thing her man wanted, as Lucie Fuller, 34, explains...

- Shannon Kyle & Louise Baty

From the very start, I knew Mark would be a great dad. We’d met in 2005, as holiday reps in Crete. But after returning home and moving into a flat in Seaford, Sussex, we’d spent years working hard – me as a PA and Mark as a leisure centre manager.

With endless energy and a dry sense of humour, Mark never had an ‘off’ day. After six years together, in July 2011, we married. At the reception we danced to Adele’s Make You Feel My Love.

Afterwards only one thing could make life more perfect. ‘Let’s try for a baby,’ I said. Mark was as keen as me but, by September 2013, I wasn’t pregnant. Tests in January 2014 showed I had polycystic ovaries, which meant I’d struggle to conceive and we were put on the waiting list for IVF.

Just a month later we were eating a takeaway at home when Mark went red and started spluttering. I whacked him on the back as he clutched his throat. I thought he was choking but Mark was breathing OK. ‘It’s just I can’t swallow,’ he gasped, finally.

We drove straight to A&E at Eastbourne Hospital. The doctor reassured us it was likely to be a piece of skin caught in Mark’s oesophagus – which can happen when the muscles contract. But to be sure, Mark was referred for an endoscopy – a scan of his digestive system. Straight after the scan in early November 2014, we were taken to see a specialist. ‘You have cancer of the oesophagus,' she said.

I saw Mark’s face drop. Cancer hadn’t been on the cards. But she explained it was treatable and with surgery and chemotherapy Mark could recover.