Robbed Of Our Future

Thomas is grieving the loss of their unborn child and praying that his seriously ill wife recovers from coronavirus

- Carla Coetzee

In A bleak mid-winter of turmoil and uncertainty it was their one shining light: the baby boy who was coming in the spring, a brand-new life to bring joy and hope back into their world.

Now that glimmer has gone. The baby never got to take his first breath and his mother is fighting for her life in a Pretoria hospital. The Grim Reaper that is Covid-19 has struck again.

Marzanne Lennox (29) is all alone in an isolation ward, the tiny heart that had been beating inside her for 30 weeks has stopped – and for a full week, she had no idea her baby had died.

She was sedated on a ventilator, a steady stream of doctors and nurses checking regularly to see if the machine was doing its job and keeping her alive.

Her husband, Thomas (30), is alone in self-isolation in their Midrand home, north of Johannesburg, unable to see his wife.

The house is packed with baby stuff, like the Iron Man teddy the excited parents-to-be had recently made. It sits in the empty cradle in the nursery among other toys the baby boy will never play with.

“I don’t know how else to describe it other than it’s heartbreaking,” Thomas tells YOU via video call.

“I feel broken and empty. Everywhere I look, I see baby things.”

Thomas, a draughtsman, lost his job at an IT company during the first month of lockdown so he was battling even before coronavirus stole his child and left his wife battling for breath.

MARZANNE started feeling unwell in June and initially, they thought it was just sinusitis. She had a headache but no fever so they weren’t too worried.