A mum has revealed her heartbreaking ordeal after her baby, who arrived a week following her wedding, died for eight minutes.
When Emily Waterhouse saw two lines pop up on her pregnancy test, she was overjoyed.
She and her then fiancé, Ryan, 30, hadn’t been trying for a baby, though were eager to cement their family given the news.
And so, they began planning to tie the knot before their little one’s arrival.
At 31 weeks gone, the pair wed in an intimate ceremony and instead of taking a honeymoon, they spent the next week decorating the nursery.
But then, the 30-year-old quickly realised she hadn’t felt her bundle of joy kicking for a few days.
“Ryan and I rushed to the hospital, where it was found our baby was struggling,” the hotel room attendant, from Blackpool, Lancashire, told Need To Know.
“He wasn’t able to cope much longer, so I was taken in for an emergency caesarean.
“I felt terrified as I lay on the operating table.
“When I heard his little cry, a wave of relief washed over me.
“But then all of that came crashing down, as he was whisked away.”
Emily and Ryan were told that their 3lb newborn, whom they named Carter, had an inflated stomach.
Further tests were carried out after his arrival in July 2025, which found he had a twisted bowel and required immediate removal surgery.
While on the operating table, though, he had a cardiac arrest and died for eight minutes.
The mum, who was in a different hospital, felt “helpless”.
She said: “I lay there alone in a puddle of tears, worry and fear.
“My heart broke instantly.
“I couldn’t breathe.
“I just thought my boy had gone and that mummy wasn’t there.
“It took me a minute to listen to anything else, where [the surgeons] explained they had halted any surgery until the next few days to let his tiny body rest and heal.
“I don’t think I would have ever been able to forgive myself for not being there [if he had gone].
“The next morning, it was all good news and I was excited to go home to start our lives as a family.
“But then Carter had to have two stoma bags fitted as he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.
“I wasn’t able to hold him for the first time until one week after he was born.”
Eight weeks later, he had his intestines rejoined.
And as of December 2025, he was finally allowed home for the first time after he weighed in at 8lbs.
Looking back, Emily and Ryan are glad they tied the knot before life dealt them this devastating card.
But they’ve still got a long way to go before Carter is fully on the road to recovery.
She added: “It brings me joy knowing how much he wanted us to be together.
“He clearly couldn’t wait until our honeymoon period was over.
“After his reversal surgery, he ended up having a tear in his repaired intestine, where the milk was just leaking through into the rest of his tummy.
“He’s on nutrition, but it’s causing damage to Carter’s liver and sludge is building up in his pancreas.
“It’s a race against time to get him off this before it does any further damage.
“But when we were finally able to take him home after a long and hard five months, we were so excited.
“It feels surreal that we’ve got there in the end.
“Now, he’s absolutely thriving.”
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