It was the summer and Joanna Cook, her husband Mark and their one-year-old daughter had settled into their holiday accommodation in France.
But what started as an idyllic family time in a country they loved to visit, ended with heartbreak and a family of three becoming four, then three once more.
The family had arrived in France on Saturday, June 11, 2022, for a last family holiday before their new baby was due in September. Jo, 38, said: "We were all settled into our cabin and had had a full day with Robyn on the Sunday. Markets, shopping, a meltdown in the supermarket, trip to the beach and time in the indoor pools. She absolutely loved the pool and I loved being in there with her. I went to bed feeling a bit tried, but that was totally normal.
"A few hours after going to bed I woke up and felt some slight cramps in my stomach. A little while later I could feel that my shorts were wet, I went to the toilet and there was more fluid. I knew something was wrong, we needed to go to the hospital." Jo said it was around 3am and when they eventually found and arrived at the hospital it was nothing like they expected.
"I'm not sure what it would be like to turn up at somewhere like the Heath (University Hospital Wales, Cardiff) as I've never had to do it, but when we got there we weren't even sure we were in the right place. The car park was empty, we were at the wrong door at first, there was nobody around. The place was totally dead, no other patients or staff, the nurses couldn’t speak English and our French was limited to ordering food.
"Even Google translate didn’t feel like it was getting us anywhere. I had to just trust them. I lay down on a bed as they talked between themselves and hooked up a few things."
Jo was soon seen by an on-call doctor who confirmed that she was in fact in labour and given the difficult news that the baby was breach and well on the way. After a very quick birth, which saw several emergency options being considered, Marty was born soon after but was rushed off to be treated in a separate room. Marty was born on June 13, 2022.
Mark and Robyn had also left the room at this point due to Robyn becoming increasingly upset. Jo said that at first she was reluctant to look at the newborn, concerned about the condition he would be in after such an early birth. "I 100% thought he was dead. I didn’t think there was any way he would survive being born so early and so quickly," said Jo.
The family were told Marty would be transferred to Nantes, around 50 miles away, to receive specialist care. Even now, Jo said that every time she heard a helicopter she was taken back to that moment. At this point, they were completely in the dark about why the birth had started so early but tests showed markers of infection in Jo's blood. They were later told this would have been passed on to Marty.
The family had updates from Nantes that Marty had arrived and was settled on their neonatal ward. They were told he was doing ok but it was "firmly an hour by hour situation." Mark and Robyn had decided to stay with Jo while Mark's brother had also flown out to offer help and comfort. Finally, at around 8pm on the Tuesday - more than 24 hours since he was born - Jo was able to meet Marty after being transferred to Nantes herself.
The following day Jo and Mark were given the devastating news that Marty had a bleed on his brain that would be monitored to see if it was getting worse but for the parents to consider different options.
"He [a doctor] told us Marty had a bleed on his brain. It could stay as it was or it could get worse. It could result in him having behavioural or learning difficulties in later life, he could have Cerebral Palsy. He laid the ground for it getting worse than either of those possibilities and there were comments about taking ‘decisions’ based on what was right for Marty."
Shortly after, Jo was finally able to hold Marty, three days after he had been born. "I was nervous, sat in a chair waiting for him to be passed to me. It took two nurses to carefully reorganise all of his tubes and wires, and gently place him down the centre of my chest, my dress pulled apart so he was on my bare skin. I looked down at him as they moved his tiny arms and legs to make sure he was in a comfortable position, turned his head to the side so the tube in his nose was unobstructed. They taped tubes to my shoulder and neck to make sure everything was kept in place and covered him in a blanket."
Jo discharged herself from hospital that night to spend time with Robyn and Mark at the home they had rented near the hospital. But they were told the following day that Marty's bleed had continued and there would come a point where they would have to make the decision to "remove support" for him. The bleed was now on both sides of his brain and after initially saying they thought Marty would survive for two weeks, doctors said this now looked more likely to be days.
Jo said hearing that news was "shattering". "He was our little boy, and we were going to have to say goodbye to him. News like that instantly sucks the breath from your chest - I can feel it now. We were told though, that not only was the bleed on his brain continuing, but one of the ventricles into his brain was beginning to swell. This could be painful for him and could eventually burst. It just sounded awful for him.
"One thing we were always clear about with the doctors is that we never wanted Marty to be in any pain. They reassured us that they were managing any discomfort for him. We knew they were beginning to increase his levels of morphine."
By this point lots of Jo and Mark's family had travelled to Nantes to support the pair and Robyn, and potentially meet the newborn - which fortunately they did have the chance to do. On Saturday, the day before Marty died, Robyn, just one years old herself, was finally able to meet her baby brother.
"One of our most unforgettable moments from our short time with Marty is him meeting Robyn. The doctors had been encouraging us to introduce the two of them and our immediate reaction was that Robyn was too young; we doubted she understood I was even pregnant let alone what was going on now.
"In the end, what followed, led me to think she was a little wiser to it all than we gave her credit for. Of course she was. We were persuaded in the end by the doctors telling us that it will be nice for Robyn when she is older to know that she did meet her brother, even if she doesn’t remember it. And that it helps everyone feel connected as a family. We wanted to do whatever we could to ease the loss we knew we would soon feel so we did it.
"That was it, our 20 minutes all together as a family of four. It was the best that it could have been." After days of alternating, Mark and Jo both spent the night with Marty in the hospital on Saturday night before making the difficult decision to end treatment the following day.
As well as navigating the difficulties of a labour at a hospital abroad with the language barrier and different conventions to deal with, after Marty's death Jo and Mark were faced with the difficult decision as to what to do next. They decided to have a cremation ceremony for Marty in France and brought his ashes back with them. "It was very much a 'what do we do now?' sort of situation.
Once returning to the UK, Jo took six months off work to process what had happened and try to recover - both physically and mentally. "I had still given birth at the end of the day", she said. It was during this time that she started her blog which was initially intended to document Marty's short life, but also in the hope writing would help her "recover" or "process" his death.
She said she also hoped it would end the stigma of talking about baby loss and wanted to emphasise how many people went through similar experiences and open up the conversation.
Jo, Mark and Robyn returned to France - and Nantes - a few months later on a family holiday which they had initially declined to go on but she said that given the country had always been a special place for the family she didn't want it to be tarnished with the memory of Marty's death.
"It's quite difficult because when I talk about that time I talk about Marty's birth but also that is where he died and they were both so close together. It felt longer than seven days at the time. It is quite difficult to articulate it. France is somewhere we have been lots of times, lots of holidays, we love it as a country and it's where Marty was born. We don't want to not be able to go there again," she said.
Joanna, a civil servant, has since shared the heartbreaking reality of baby loss by documenting day-by-day accounts of Marty's life. You can find this on her blog here. She and her husband have also raised over £20,000 for several children's charities by planning a 400 mile bike ride back to Les Sables-d’Olonne in western France where Marty was born.
Mark will take on the challenge to raise money for a number of charities involved in the type of care Jo received both during and after giving birth. The challenge will end a few days before what would have been Marty's first birthday and the family will reunite where he was born.
Writing on the fundraiser page, Mark, who is going to be undertaking the challenge with three of his friends and Jo's father, wrote: "The care my family received during this time was exceptional. The doctors and nurses in both hospitals were fantastic, going out of their way to make sure we understood what was happening whilst creating precious time with our son. We will never be able to thank those who helped us enough.
"In light of everything that has happened, we wanted to raise money for a number of charities involved in this specialist care and providing support to families who find themselves in this difficult position.
"My goal is to cycle from St Malo (where our 'holiday' started), through to the hospital in Nantes and finally to Côte De Lumière where Jo gave birth. The route will be about 400 miles and my intention is to cover this distance over a week. Having never cycled further than 20 miles, not being an avid cyclist or even relatively fit, this is going to be quite a challenge! Any donations you can offer will be greatly received and distributed to 2Wish Foundation, Noahs Ark Tiny Lives Appeal and Nantes University Hospital Neonatal Care."
You can find information about the fundraiser here.
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