When Louise Prashad found out she was expecting twins in 2015, she was over the moon - if a little surprised.
“My now-husband Max and I had only been together for a year,” Louise, now 28, told The Mirror.
Just 21 at the time, Louise, from York, said the pregnancy was a “happy occurrence” which she only found out about when she went to hospital with stomach pain.
“They kept me overnight and scanned me in the morning when Max was there. That was when I found out I was about eight weeks pregnant and that I’d released two eggs,” she said.
After an initial bump in the road, Louise says the rest of her pregnancy with Mia and Leo went smoothly - until she was six months gone, when things started to go horribly wrong.
“I had abdominal pain, nosebleeds, mouth bleeds, yellow skin, vaginal bleeding,” she recalled.
“I was extremely thirsty, to the point where I was eating family packs of ice lollies every day and downing litres of water.
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“I felt like I was on death’s door.”
A frightened Louise visited hospital several times with her symptoms, but was sent home each time and told it was just a standard twin pregnancy, which is always a bit harder.
Finally at 37 weeks and three days pregnant, Louise went to A&E with a vaginal bleed - but was sent home yet again and told it wasn’t her time to give birth.
“Six hours after I got home, I vomited two pints of blood,” she recalled.
“My husband was about to go to work. But if he’d already left and come home later that night I’d have been dead.”
Max called an ambulance and Louise was rushed to hospital - but she can’t remember anything.
“Max told me I wasn’t making any sense because I had blood poisoning and was going into multiple organ failure. Then a junior doctor confirmed to Max that Mia and Leo didn’t have a heartbeat.
“They put me into an induced coma and transferred me to St James’s Hospital in Leeds.”
When she arrived at the hospital, Louise had a caesarian section to deliver the twins - and tragically, they were stillborn.
“I had a 10% chance of surviving the C-section,” Louise said.
While his partner was unconscious, doctors told Max that Louise had acute fatty liver of pregnancy, which had gone undiagnosed.
The rare but incredibly serious condition can lead to foetal complications and can result in the death of the infant and the mother.
“I still don’t know how Max did it - we had only been together a year. You don’t think that’s going to happen,” Louise said.
While Max prayed for Louise to wake up, he was also told doctors had to perform a liver transplant on her.
Two weeks after being put into the coma, Louise woke up - but she hadn’t yet been told her twins had died.
Louise recalled: “I wasn’t lucid for a week or two. I was hallucinating and terrified of everyone. I’d completely lost my memory.”
One day, in a moment of clarity, she recognised her mum, who broke the news Mia and Leo hadn’t survived.
“I didn’t believe her,” Louise recalled.
But once the horrifying reality had sunk in, she made it her mission to focus on physiotherapy and get out of her hospital bed so she could visit her babies in the hospital’s Chapel of Rest.
“I wasn’t sure I’d be able to go at first. I couldn’t imagine seeing them not alive. But they were my children and I needed to see them.
“They looked as though they could wake at any moment. It was peaceful but heartbreaking.”
Going home without their twins, Louise says she doesn’t know how she and Max coped, but she’s grateful they had each other.
The couple were supported by Tommy’s, the UK’s biggest baby loss charity, which helped them grieve.
The charity funds pioneering research into the causes of baby loss and supports women and their partners through such a difficult time.
While Louise got used to living with a transplanted liver, she was told by doctors she needed to wait a year before trying for another baby.
And just over a year on from their loss, while they were on their honeymoon, the pair found out they were expecting once again.
“I felt pure adrenaline,” Louise said. “To this day, I don’t know how I got through that pregnancy.
“Every ache and pain made me think something was wrong. It was only when I had my C-section and they put her in my arms that I believed she was really here.”
Louise and Max named their daughter Ava, who arrived safely and in perfect health.
“It was pure relief and astonishment. I just felt like I was looking at somebody else. I didn’t feel like this was me,” Louise said.
Although the pair were overjoyed to welcome Ava into the world, they were still grieving for Mia and Leo and took out legal action against York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
At the end of last year, the Trust admitted “failings in care” had led to the stillbirth of the twins.
When she was physically able, Louise took up running to help cope with the grief of losing her babies.
“It gave me the space I needed to breathe. It sometimes felt like someone was pressing down on my chest, but pounding the pavement and getting out all the anger really helped,” Louise said.
She signed up for the York 10k in 2019, running in memory of Mia and Leo for Tommy’s charity.
After that, she says she “got the bug” and began running more races on behalf of Tommy’s. Last year, she completed the London Marathon for the charity.
While running has helped Louise with her grief, she’s had some more heartbreaking setbacks on her motherhood journey.
Louise found out she was pregnant again in 2020 - but was told at an early scan she was once again expecting twins.
“It was traumatic. I just couldn’t believe it,” she said. “There was a lot of discussion with my doctors, and they consulted experts in London.
“The decision was made that I couldn’t continue with a twin pregnancy. At 20 weeks, I had to have a foetal reduction, which meant saying goodbye to another child.”
When her son Nico was born safely, Louise was over the moon - but she was also grieving for Nila, who hadn’t made it to full term.
“My son should have had a twin sister,” she said.
Once again Louise and Max were supported by Tommy’s, and she kept up the running to help work through her grief.
Since 2019, Louise has run 110 races - fundraising for Tommy’s through most of them.
“They’ve been so supportive. I wanted to be able to give them a little bit back,” she said.
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Louise is preparing to run the postponed London Landmarks Half Marathon on 3 April for Tommy’s - and she’s aiming for a super speedy time of less than one hour and 50 minutes.
She said: “The doctors said I wouldn’t be able to do things like this. They said I’d never work full time again and thought my life expectancy would be reduced by up to 20 years.
“But I’m one of those people who likes to prove people wrong. My donor gave me the gift of life and I want to live every day for her, Mia, Leo and Nila.”
Louise has set up a JustGiving page to raise funds for Tommy's. To donate, click here.
Louise has started a petition to amend the statutory bereavement awards to include stillborn children. To sign, click here
