Heartwarming twist after young mum loses unborn baby from devastating stroke
Nicole Gallacher paid tribute to the man who saved her life in a touching way.
Mum-to-be Nicole Gallacher was just 30 years old when an unexpected and devastating stroke claimed the life of her unborn baby.
Specialist medics desperately worked to save Nicole’s life after suffering a ruptured arteriovenous malformation, meaning a tangle of blood vessels in her brain burst. Still, it meant delivering baby Ned at just 22 weeks. The Victorian mum was “absolutely devastated” to learn that while she survived, her baby did not.
In a heartwarming twist, when Nicole and husband Dave fell pregnant again, they knew exactly what to name their son — after the doctors who saved Nicole’s life. The baby boy, called Angus Michael Andrew Gallacher, is named after Associate Professor Augusto ‘Gus’ Gonzalvo, the brain surgeon who operated on Nicole.
“Little Gus was named after my brain surgeon,” the mum, from Mount Evelyn, Victoria, told Yahoo News Australia. His middle names Michael and Andrew are after the paramedic who came to her rescue and the ICU doctor who cared for her after surgery.
“It was important to me because without them he wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t be here either,” she said. Nicole said Dave came up with the idea after the couple fell pregnant.
“We didn’t know if he was a boy or a girl until he was born. But when we found out it was a boy and we were able to use the name, we would have loved a girl anyway but we were delighted to use the name, and it gave it so much meaning.”
The family reached out to the surgeons to let them know — and baby Gus even got to meet one of his namesakes. When they met the surgeon Gus the mum said he joked “you haven’t made it until you have a baby named after you”.
Stroke can happen to ‘anyone at any time’
The mum is now sharing her story to raise awareness about the risk of strokes, “Stroke can happen to anyone at any time, she said. “I was a perfectly healthy 30-year-old woman, I was pregnant at the time and having a stroke was not something that had crossed our minds.”
It was March 2020 when Nicole said that she started experiencing a “really bad” headache and vomiting. “I didn’t know what was happening but knew I needed help,” she said.
“I had an AVM so it’s like a mass inside your head and it burst. When you are pregnant your blood gets thicker and you produce more. I was a ticking time bomb, it could have ruptured at any point.”
While doctors were able to save Nicole, they had no choice but to deliver her baby, who sadly passed away. When she regained consciousness, Dave was responsible for sharing the heartbreaking news. When she found out, Nicole said she was “absolutely devastated”.
“My first reaction was ‘Can we still have more children? Not that he could ever be replaced, but I knew how much being a mother and father meant to us.”
Miracle baby brings joy
It was a long journey to recovery with over a year of rehabilitation and the mum still can’t drive, or walk on uneven surfaces. But when Nicole and Dave found out they were pregnant, they were over the moon. But with Nicole’s medical history, they were determined to take precautions this time round,
“When I was pregnant with my son, I had genetic testing done,” she explained, which thankfully revealed the condition was not hereditary. Healthy baby Gus was born on December 6, 2022, weighing 2.78 kg.
Nicole is now calling on Aussies to raise funds for the Heart Research Institute, who are appealing for donations to help pay for a new scientist to analyse all the data which it’s hoped will lead to the treatment breakthrough.
“My life would have been completely different had I have known [about my condition],” she said. To donate, visit the Heart Research Institute website.
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