Mum and baby die during tragic ordeal leaving dad to raise four boys
The couple initially thought it could've been food poisoning, but things quickly took a turn for the worse.
A heartbroken dad is left to raise four boys on his own after his wife and unborn daughter died during a traumatic pregnancy ordeal.
Queensland man Ben Thompson said his wife Lauren had a "healthy and normal" pregnancy — her fifth after having four boys now aged 9, 6, 4 and 2 — but on March 31 she began to experience excruciating stomach pain before bed.
"It just became more and more painful to the point where she was getting scared, I started getting scared, and so I called Triple-0," the 42-year-old father told Yahoo News Australia. "She actually thought it was [from something] she’d eaten earlier. But knowing what we know now, it was a ruptured uterus and she was actually bleeding out."
Devastated dad learns the fate of his wife, daughter
When paramedics arrived at their North Lakes home they first suspected a seizure. Mainly because Lauren's vision was impaired, her arm was stiff and her fingers had involuntarily crossed over one another. She also collapsed on the way to the ambulance.
After arriving at Redcliffe Hospital, about 40 doctors and nurses worked to save the 39-year-old and her baby — who was later named Hannah. "They needed to get her out," Mr Thompson said. Three hours later his "whole world" came crashing down when he was told the tragic news — his wife and daughter had died.
"I was on the floor in tears," he recalled, but minutes later that changed. The head doctor revealed to Ben that his wife had actually pulled through, but she remained in critical condition. He was feeling both relief and grief.
Baby died sometime before arriving at hospital
Despite their efforts to save the unborn child, Mr Thompson learned his daughter had likely died as soon as her mum began to feel the pain at home, which was a sign of the rupture. Her body was already shutting down.
The rupture was caused by Lauren's uterus growing on old scar tissue from her previous four caesareans. "What the doctors told me is that when this type of thing happens, the mother's body shuts off blood to the placenta to save itself," he explained.
Tragic turn of events after mum miraculously pulls through
Over the following week, Ben said he was "holding on to any little thing that [doctors] would give me". His wife's organs started to repair, her liver started to improve and her kidneys began to function properly. She was also starting to breathe on her own. But everything changed last Friday night — one week after the initial incident — when Lauren suffered an "unrecoverable" brain bleed.
"I had a conversation with the lead doctors who said it was an unrecoverable brain bleed at the back of her head. It wasn't repairable, you couldn't function properly after that kind of an injury to the brain," he said. The next day he made the decision to "remove all the tubes and let her pass" but not without letting their four boys say goodbye to their mum.
"They were in shock but said their goodbyes. They said 'mummy I love you and gave her a kiss'," the dad revealed, saying they couldn't handle it for too long. "I could foresee how many layers of trauma there were that we were going to have to work through."
Kids prepare for life without their mum
Now, the devastated dad is learning to cope as a solo parent, dealing with his own grief and that of his four boys. "She took care of everything. She left no stone unturned. So now I'm thinking 'how the hell am I going to do this?'" he said.
The news of Lauren's passing "hit everyone who knew her like a sledge hammer", a friend of the family wrote on a fundraiser set up for Ben and his kids. "Lauren was the most incredible mum, she devoted her life to her boys," it reads. "Anyone who has met them could feel the love and respect between them all. She will be so deeply missed by everyone, especially her family."
Ben, who works as Sales Executive at an IT company, is currently off work to care for the boys, with the GoFundMe Page hoping to raise $40,000 for the family.
The youngest children are too small to fully understand what's happening, Mr Thompson said. "My two-year-old was calling out for mum [on Thursday night] but there's nothing I can tell him that he'll understand so I just had to hold him."
Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.
You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter and download the Yahoo News app from the App Store or Google Play.
