“I always wanted to have six kids, but I never thought I’d have to specify that they had to be living kids,” says Sarah Numan, as she looks through her family photo album. Among the snapshots of smiling toddlers and happy, healthy children, the Auckland mum also has pictures of her little babies who never got the chance to smile.
For Sarah (32), the photos are precious reminders of the two stillbirths and one miscarriage she has had in the past five years. Tragically, Sarah’s babies had a rare genetic condition, Lethal oultiple Pterygium Syndrome, which is usually only seen when the parents are close blood relatives. But Sarah is originally from the UK and her husband Remco is from Holland.
The two, who met in New Zealand, have absolutely no family connections between them, leading medical experts to just one conclusion: a tragic genetic coincidence.
There was no warning of the heartbreak to come when Sarah and Remco met just after she emigrated to New Zealand with her eldest daughter Nina (now 11). A former nanny, Sarah had always wanted to have a large family of her own – she even told Remco on their first date about her dream of having six children.
A year after marrying Remco, Sarah had Neiko, who’s now five. It was a straightforward pregnancy and birth. But Sarah’s third pregnancy was very different. At the 18-week scan, she and Remco were given some devastating news – the longed-for baby daughter they’d named Hope had just four weeks to live. Her head and body were full of fluid. The doctors couldn’t work out why, they just knew she wouldn’t live more than four weeks.
“It was such a shock. I didn’t know babies died after the first three months of pregnancy. I thought once you reached the so-called ‘safe point’ everything would be fine.”
Sarah was induced and gave birth to Hope, who was already dead when she arrived. Thinking about her daughter’s tiny 11cm-long body, which she cradled in the palms of her hand, Sarah is so choked with emotion she can hardly speak.
“Hope was so tiny,” she says, fighting back tears. “I had never seen anything like that before. It was such a traumatic ordeal that I thought, ‘Surely I’ll never have to go through anything like this ever again.'”
Soon after Hope’s death, Sarah fell pregnant again and gave birth to Harry (now four). Although Harry was born 13 weeks prematurely and initially had to fight to survive, he made it through and is today a bright and bouncy little boy.
Still dreaming of her six kids, Sarah got pregnant again a year after Harry was born. But at the 12-week scan, she had to relive her nightmare. Another baby was to die in her womb this time a little boy. Sarah named him Noah.
“They told me my baby wouldn’t survive and recommended a termination. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to give him every chance. To me, if there was a heartbeat, there was hope.”
Desperate to ensure Noah was still alive, Sarah listened to his heartbeat every day and had weekly ultrasound scans. Meanwhile, medical experts continued investigating the cause of Hope’s death and eventually found it was LoPS.
“The doctor called us into his office and apologised before asking if we were related, which we aren’t,” says Sarah. “We must be the rarest of the rare. Remco has one mutant gene and I have one mutant gene of this crazy syndrome. Every time we have a child together, there is a one-in-four chance those two genes will get together and create the syndrome.”
Sarah was once again induced, giving birth to a lifeless Noah. “At first, I was terrified to look at him,” she explains. “I knew these were babies only a mother could love because of what the syndrome does to them. But when I did look at Noah, all I saw was his eyes – they were a beautiful blue. And he had lovely lips.
“I held him for 15 minutes. I desperately wanted to bathe him and put a nappy on him, but I wasn’t allowed to. They wrapped him in a black sack and took him away.”
Not long after losing Noah, Sarah fell pregnant once more. But at eight weeks, the baby did not have a heartbeat. She miscarried the baby, at a stage too early to know its sex, but Sarah believes it was a girl and named her Willow.
Despite the one-in-four risk, Sarah still wants three more kids. She has also joined Stillbirth and Newborn Death Support (Sands), an organisation that supports parents whose children have died. Sarah is so enthusiastic about Sands that she has started a branch in the South Auckland area to help other women who have lost their babies.
While she’ll always mourn the babies who didn’t survive, all Sarah has to do is look at her three gorgeous living children to know that she won’t give up in her quest to have three more. “Every time I get pregnant, there is that chance of heartbreak again, but then I see my children laughing and having fun, and that gives me new hope and determination.”
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