The parents of a baby born with serious heart conditions thought they'd "never see him again" when he turned blue after being born. Karl Chester and partner Katie Bradshaw were told of their son's right-sided aortic arch before in the lead-up to his birth.
The condition is where the heart's arteries wrap around the trachea. It often does not have any symptoms, so at first Karl and Katie were optimistic that there wouldn't be any issues.
But, as the couple told the LiverpoolECHO, they were left "terrified" when little Reid turned "blue" after an emergency caesarean in May. He was quickly placed in a ventilator at their local hospital in Warrington, but it was soon clear that he needed further care and was transferred to Alder Hey Children's Hospital.
Karl, 31, said the experience was "torture" and they were terrified they had seen their son for the last time. Karl and Katie, 32, who had barely recovered from the caesarean, rushed to the children's hospital to discover Reid's condition was "a rare variant" and he needed surgery.
Karl told the ECHO: "I was expecting that to be the last (time) I saw him. I had done some research into the condition, probably to my own detriment, but I didn't realise how rare it was. The surgeons said they had only done about 15 of these surgeries over the years.
"When he was born it was all a blur - we felt like we were in fight or flight mode. We just had our fingers crossed hoping everything would work out. Reid ended up having two surgeries on his heart and he was only seven days old."
Karl said the surgeries were a success and the family spent the next three weeks staying in the Ronald McDonald House at the hospital. Karl said he and Katie were there watching the ventilator following the surgery - and started to feel "more confident" the more they spoke with the surgeons.
The couple were there the moment Reid woke up, spending "as much time as we could with him" in the following weeks. Karl said: "He stopped gargling in his sleep and started breathing normally. He was so quiet. We didn't realise that was what he was meant to sound like.
"It was so refreshing. He was like a real baby. But the surgeons need all the recognition. They were superheroes. They are the celebrities of today."
And now 15 weeks on from the "terrifying" experience, Reid is back at home with his family "acting like any healthy baby should". Karl said: "He's screaming, crying and keeping us up at night but we don't mind. If you look at him now you'd never believe what he went through."
