The parents of a “miracle baby” who was not expected to come home from hospital but is now a happy 15-month-old have shared their experience in hope of helping others.
Showjumpers John and Bryony Crippen’s daughter Frankie spent weeks in intensive care after her birth by emergency caesarean section in July 2021.
“Our daughter was given no chance of survival and Bryony nearly lost her life,” John told H&H, adding that it had been a very tough time.
John was away competing at the Royal International Horse Show when Bryony, then 38 weeks’ pregnant, felt something might be wrong. She told H&H it had not been the easiest pregnancy, but when she woke up on 22 July, she felt something was different.
“I phoned my mum and said ‘Something isn’t right’,” she said. “Frankie was still, and had dropped, and it felt as if I wasn’t pregnant. When they’re sleeping, you can feel it, but I couldn’t feel her at all.”
Bryony went into hospital, telling her and John’s older daughter Chloe, now four, that her father was on his way home.
“John had had a really bad fall, and had nearly broken his back, so he was coming home early,” Bryony said. “I said to Chloe ‘See you when I get home’, and that was the last time I saw her for two weeks.”
Bryony was examined and told she was 3cm dilated, and in labour, although she had experienced no contractions, and her waters had not broken. She was on the phone to her mother when she was told she needed to have an emergency caesarean.
“I went down there, shaking, and the surgeon said ‘Bend over the bed’ so he could give me a spinal but someone else said there wasn’t time and I’d have to have a general,” Bryony said. “I said ‘Just put me under’ but they gave me a spinal and there wasn’t time for it to work. They started cutting me open, and I passed out from the pain.
“Apparently when Frankie came out, she was fitting, she didn’t breathe for eight minutes. She was limp and blue, and pretty much dead.”
The next memory Bryony has is waking up to find her arms strapped up, as she was given blood.
“I looked at the bed next to me and there was blood everywhere,” she said. “All over the bed and the floor, and I thought ‘What’s going on?’ I looked at the clock and it was 10.40pm, and it said ‘Baby Crippen, born 5.29pm’, and I thought ‘something’s wrong’.”
Bryony later found out that Frankie had been put into a special cooling unit, the aim of which is to protect the brain from any further injury, and was in an induced coma.
“The poor child was weighed down with wires and tubes, on her back and they transferred her to the John Radcliffe Hospital,” she said. “I didn’t know what was happening; it took ages to give me three pints of blood and no one was telling me anything.
“Then John came in and he’s not one to show any emotion but he was a wreck. He said ‘I’m so sorry’ and I just thought ‘She’s dead’. She wasn’t, but it wasn’t looking good.”
Bryone wanted to go to her daughter but had to have four more pints of blood.
“The doctors said it wasn’t looking good, but we could go to her in a couple of days,” she said. “I said if she died, I wouldn’t see her, and they said she’d stay alive in her coma, as she had to stay in the cooling unit for 72 hours.”
Matters were complicated as Bryony had tested positive for Covid, and she was told Frankie had too, so John was not allowed to stay with her.
They finally got to the John Radcliffe as Frankie was being warmed up, and were told she showed no signs of brain activity.
“I started to play music to her,” Bryony said. “When I was pregnant, Chloe and I had watched Frozen on repeat every day so I played that, and she started doing little movements. They said it was only a reflex, but she was breathing on her own at times too. They said her kidneys had failed, but I thought there was something there to fight for.
“They took her for an MRI and I was hopeful there would be good news but they said sorry, it’s really bad news. They said she had a brain injury and wouldn’t make it. They said she only had a 10% chance, and if she did make it, she wouldn’t know who we were, she’d have to be fed through a tube, and it would be no life for her.
“They said we could leave the breathing tube in for three days but we thought that was cruel. It came out that night and when it did, she lay on my chest and she started crying, and moving. I thought ‘She’s not going anywhere’.”
Frankie drank expressed milk, and a further check showed her kidneys were functioning.
“Her kidneys had gone from no function to 100% – the doctors were standing there, not knowing what to say,” Bryony said. “I said ‘I’m not listening to them any more because Frankie’s doing her own thing, and we’re going with what she says’. I knew she wouldn’t be what they said she would be.”
Bryony said doctors were still telling the Crippens there was no hope – Frankie was fed via a tube for two weeks as doctors feared she would drown if she was given a bottle – but they believed there was, and were proved right when Frankie was finally allowed home, with oxygen at first, and classed as on palliative care.
Frankie on her first birthday, with parents John and Bryony, and sister Chloe
“She’s a miracle baby,” Bryony said. “We’d decided before she was born that she’d be named after my granddad Frank, and he nearly died, and lost his whole bodyweight in blood like I did, after a car accident. Doctors called him a miracle for living, and she’s named after him.
“That’s quite spooky, as she’s only survived thanks to the fight she’s got. The doctors and therapist still don’t know what’s wrong, we still haven’t got a diagnosis. She was meant to be dead but she’s here.”
Times were very tough after Frankie came home; the challenges included the fact Frankie hated any sort of cold, and being laid on her back, both of which Bryony believes may be connected to her time in the cooling unit. She added though that the unit did save her daughter’s life, so has raised over £7,000 for another one at the hospital.
And although she still has no diagnosis, other than a brain injury suffered at birth, and her parents do not know what her capabilities will be as she gets older, she has made huge progress.
“I’m not getting excited that she’ll be able to walk; what will happen, will happen, and we just want the best for her,” Bryony said. “It’s hard, and we wouldn’t have been able to do it without our amazing family and friends.”
Bryony, who thanked her mother Hayley for all her support, as well as her sister who gave up work to help, said she and John handled the situation very differently; she was unable to think about horses, while he threw himself back into competing; it helped him cope, and of course the business had to carry on.
“We didn’t deal with it together; we nearly broke up so many times because we were so different, but now we’re closer than ever,” she said. “I’d say to anyone else in a situation like this; do it together.
“I’d like it if this helped others; at the time, I didn’t know what to do, which was horrible, and I’d like to help as there was no one else who had gone through what we did.
“I don’t regret anything we’ve done, which I’m really happy about, and Frankie’s here because of her sheer fight. We may never get a diagnosis, which is the hardest thing, we just know she’s hypersensitive. But she’s going in the right direction, slowly, and she’s here, and a happy little girl.”
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