'I was offered a termination twice - but this photo proves why I was right to decline'

Every birthday little Oliver Seagrove’s parents take a very special photo of their son, sitting on his favourite tree stump in their local park. The portrait marks another landmark they thought Oliver might never reach, after he was born with half a heart.

His mum Jess, 29, a nurse, tells The : “His survival has been so incredible that we wanted to mark each year to show what an achievement it is.” Jess and husband Ashley, 30, a former customer services manager, who live in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, with Oliver and their daughter Elise, three, were thrilled when they realised they were expecting a baby.

But an abnormality at the 12 week scan, led to tests revealing their unborn baby was at high risk of , with the added possibility something was wrong with his heart. Jess says: “It was devastating. We were offered further investigations, but I’d already suffered two miscarriages, so we declined.

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“Then we were offered a termination, but we refused. We wanted to give our baby a chance.’” The 16 week scan revealed that Oliver had hypoplastic right heart syndrome, meaning the right side of the organ doesn’t develop properly. This causes low blood oxygen levels and inadequate blood flow to the lungs and occurs in around one in 100,000 babies, who usually need life saving surgery within a week of being born.

Jess says: “We could clearly see that the right side of his heart was missing. We were offered a termination again but we said no again.” Told 48 hours later that his condition was too complex for surgery, Jess adds: “I heard this howl coming from far away and didn’t realise at first that it was coming from me.

“To be told that there was nothing that could be done for our baby was unbearable. ” Oliver was born at Birmingham Women’s Hospital on September 8th 2016, weighing 5Ib 12oz, but his troubles were far from over.

“Doctors said they would put a stent in at six days old to help the blood flow around his half heart,” says Jess. ”Luckily that went okay and he was still with us.” A further operation called a Glenn procedure followed at four months old, where doctors tried to re-plumb his half heart to help it work.

But the tiny baby suffered a build up of fluid around the heart and for 48 hours his life hung in the balance - with it later being revealed he had also had a stroke. “It was such a scary time. Doctors said if it had been left for another two days, then he wouldn’t have made it,” says Jess.

Taking months to build up strength after so much early trauma, by the time of his second birthday, his parents finally felt he was out of danger. Jess continues: “He was stronger by his second birthday, so that’s when we took the first photograph on the log at our favourite park.

“It seemed like such an incredible day - that he had made it to his second birthday - and we wanted to capture that moment forever.” And so the birthday photo tradition has continued - although Oliver needed further heart surgery, aged four, when he had a Fontan procedure, rerouting blood to the lungs, and developed .

Thankfully, he survived - going on to have hernia surgery when he turned six. “Seeing Oliver now, photographed in that same spot on each birthday, shows how he has proved doctors who didn’t think he’d survive wrong,” says Jess.

“He’s doing incredibly well. He’s proud of his scar down his chest and he knows what he has been through to be here today. He struggles with his balance since the stroke, but he’s learning to ride a bike and he loves being with his little sister, who dotes on him.

“We will carry on taking a photo on his birthday each year - and we put them up in frames around the house ,so we can see every day how far he has come. Doctors wanted to terminate my twice, but look at Oliver now.”

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