A mum with breast cancer is mourning the death of her baby girl who was born 12 weeks premature. Heidi Loughlin, had delayed treatment in order to give her and the unborn baby the best hope of survival.
But her little daughter, Ally Louise Smith died at eight days old.
Heidi told the BBC that giving birth to the baby had seemed like the right decision because the prognosis had been good.
However, with hindsight, knowing that her baby would die anyway, she says that she would have made a different decision and instead had treatment more quickly so she could be there for her two sons.
“If I knew she wasn’t going to make it… I would have kept her in my tummy. With her having such a great prognosis at 28 weeks – it just made sense. And maybe some people would have done things differently but I wanted to make it right for all of them.
She’s in my mind all the time. I want her to be proud of me. She’s my little girl.”
“Everything was brilliant and then she got really, really unwell and wouldn’t ever recover and it was the darkest most horrendous all-consuming feeling.”
Heidi also said that after Ally’s death she had felt like refusing chemotherapy, but had carried on for the sake of her children and her partner Kevin Smith.
The 33 year old has raised more than £16,000 for Cots for Tots, a charity supporting the special care baby unit at St Michael’s Hospital in the UK.
Her JustGiving page is https://www.justgiving.com/Heidi-Loughlin-Cathy-dennis/
