Ella-Jai Harvey is proving her parents right. Just weeks before her birth, Toni-Louise Hubbart and Daniel Harvey were advised to consider an abortion because she had developed hydrocephalus, a condition where babies are born with “water on the brain.”
Six months after Ella-Jai’s birth, the little girl is doing well and Toni-Louise and Daniel are even more confident of their decision and the bright future she has ahead of her. Ella-Jai was born on September 16, weighing 8lb 1oz and now there is no looking back.
The England-based Shields Gazette has this touching story:
Toni-Louise, 23, from Grange Road, Jarrow, said: “It doesn’t bear thinking about what would have happened if we had decided on the termination.
“It all came as such a shock. My other scans had been fine, and this was picked up just five weeks before I was due.
“We were given the options, and Daniel and I knew we had to go through with the pregnancy, even though the doctors had explained that she could have disabilities.
“But now that she’s here, Ella-Jai is doing fantastic, she’s meeting all the markers she should be, and she’s great.”
When she was just two days old, Ella-Jai had a device called a shunt placed in her head at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary, to help drain away the fluid on her brain.If left, it could have led to brain damage, a loss in mental and physical abilities, and even death.
Ella-Jai now has a special pressure gauge in her head, which has a tube that feeds into her stomach to alleviate any further build-up of fluid.
The couple have decided to raise cash for the Royal Victoria Infirmary’s Tiny Lives fund, as a way of saying “thank you” to medical staff.
Toni-Louise said: “The problem she has will never go away, but this drain goes from her head, down behind her ear and into her tummy, so it means there will never be a build-up.
“We were going back to the hospital every week for checks at first, but the last time we were told we didn’t have to return for three months because everything was going so well.”
