Told She Might Never Walk... Now My Daughter Is A Model

Julie, 41, wife of ex-footballer Phil Neville, was determined to prove their doctors wrong...

- Sarah Holmes

Determination is a trait that runs deep in our family, and nobody has more of it than my daughter Isabella. when she was born doctors said she’d never walk. But three years later, as I watched her wobble from one foot to the other across the living room, I knew this little girl could achieve anything.

My husband Phil and I were delighted when we discovered I was expecting Isabella in October 2003. We’d had our son Harvey just 15 months earlier and couldn’t wait to give him a sibling. But, early one morning in January 2004, when I was 28 weeks pregnant, I woke to find the bed sheets soaking wet.

Phil was away at a training camp in Dubai with Manchester United, so I’d brought Harvey into bed with me. At first, I thought he’d had an accident. But as I got to my feet more water gushed to the floor – and there was blood, too.

Terrified, I called my sister. I screamed at her to come quickly, then in the next moment I was pulling a bleary-eyed Harvey out of bed and getting him dressed. ‘If the baby comes today it will die,’ I told my sister when she arrived 50 minutes later.

A nurse met us at the door of the hospital, and as my sister looked after Harvey, I was taken straight to a treatment room where an obstetrician did a scan.

The results showed my waters had broken – and I was going into labour. The doctors explained that my baby was stable and would continue to grow if they could halt the process. That meant pumping my body full of drugs. ‘Your husband needs to get on a plane home as soon as possible,’ she said.