A mother has shared how she refused an abortion despite believing she risked her own life, because of her deep love for her 13-week-old unborn child.
At a routine scan, Mickayla Jordan-Smyth was diagnosed with partial molar pregnancy – where a mass of cells grows in the womb and can become cancerous.
She was advised to have an abortion so that she could save her life, but refused as she already loved her baby girl.
‘Heartbroken’
Mickayla, of North Yorkshire, said: “I was heartbroken. Although I was only 13 weeks pregnant, this baby was loved.
“I’d seen the little heartbeat on the screen, seen its kicks and it already meant so much. I sobbed hysterically when I got home.
“But I was adamant I was going to have my baby and do what I could for it, even if it meant me being unwell too.”
Worry
At each weekly scan, the mass appeared to be growing to the point where Mickayla and her husband Craig couldn’t even see their baby.
“I kept thinking the horrible mass was going to smother her and that she wouldn’t make it out alive”, she said.
She also explained how worried Craig had been, thinking that he could lose both his child and his wife if the mass was cancerous.
‘Amazing’
At 28 weeks, Mickayla had an emergency caesarean section after her placenta detached from the womb.
“When I woke up, I didn’t expect to have a baby. I really thought I had already lost her”, she said.
Raine is now 22 weeks old and Mickayla says: “She’s amazing and has started smiling and giggling.”
Mickayla was later told that rather than a partial molar pregnancy, she actually had a rare but much less serious abnormality called placental mesenchymal dysplasia.