Cornflour Girl's Miracle I'm Having A Baby!

She’s beaten the odds in more ways than one

- Carmen Lichi

Looking down at her burgeoning baby bump, Ashleigh Lilley can’t help but beam.

“I just never, ever thought this would be possible,” says the mum-to-be, tears sparkling in her eyes. “Doctors told me that 2020 would be the year that I might die, and now it’s become the year I’ll give birth!”

In 2015, doctors estimated the Christchurch-born 26year-old had just five years to live. Along with her younger sister Megan, 23, Ashleigh is one of only four people in New Zealand to suffer from the potentially fatal, exceptionally rare condition glycogen storage disease (GSD) type 1B. The sisters’ livers are missing a crucial enzyme that makes and stores fuel from carbohydrates.

In 2016, the year after her bleak prognosis, Ashleigh told Woman’s Day how she and Megan had survived since infancy only due to consuming a concoction of cornflour and lemonade every five hours their entire lives – leading to her being dubbed The Cornflour Girl.

Corn starch is effective because every tablespoon contains nine grams of carbohydrates. When taken raw, it is hard for the body to digest, therefore slowly releasing energy. Missing a dose, which occasionally happened, would throw the girls into a critical condition.

Megan, who has an even more severe form of the disease, had a liver transplant in 2013. In 2018, former nursing student Ashleigh finally had one too.

But while her life expectancy improved, she was still forced to put her studies on hold due to ongoing ill health. Doctors were also very bleak about her chances of conceiving naturally.