THE GREATEST GIFT

Cheryl Archbold, 40, is waiting, and hoping, for a life-saving present for her daughter

- MISHAAL KHAN

Walking around the hospital grounds with my 21-month-old daughter Beatrix, I hold her soft hand as she toddles along and looks up at me with her big blue eyes. Despite wires snaking out of her chest into a machine wheeling along beside her, she couldn’t possibly comprehend the gravity of her situation. Yet this hospital has been our home since May. And it will still be our home for Christmas, and beyond unless Beatrix is given the greatest gift of all – a new heart…

We have been through a lot in the last few years. In September 2018, my baby girl, Isabel, was stillborn at 26 weeks after being diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. My husband Terry, then 41, and I were inconsolable and my daughter Eliza, eight, couldn’t understand how she’d lost her little sister before she’d even had a chance to meet her.

It was crushing - but we found solace in agreeing to give Isabel’s heart and tissue to research. Our girl was a hero.

Eighteen months later, we fell pregnant with Beatrix. When she was born in January 2021, she completed our family and took away some of the pain of losing Isabel.