D'S STORY

We were both so excited about the forthcoming birth of our first child.  My pregnancy had been quite uneventful and we had made all the usual plans, gas & air, water birth, cottage hospital, like all first time parents do.

Of course things never do go quite to plan and at 6 days overdue, my waters finally broke and off we went to hospital looking forward to coming home with our little bundle of joy.

I was admitted to the delivery suite that night but the hospital seemed really busy and we were left alone for what seemed like a long time. The staff continued to monitor the baby's heartbeat and discussed whether or not it was normal. Meanwhile the pain was getting worse and I relented and had an epidural. They also gave me a drug to help with my contractions. This went on all night and the next morning and being first time parents we didn't think anything was wrong and just thought we were in safe hands.

How wrong we were.

About lunchtime, it all went terribly wrong and I was rushed into theatre, in a state of shock for an emergency caesarean.

When H was born, he was lifeless and was taken straight away for resuscitation. I could see from Mike's face that his condition was really serious.

H was admitted to the Special Care Baby Unit that evening as he had started having fits and remained there for 2 weeks.

We were so pleased when we were able to bring him home at last and from what we had been told by the doctors, thought he had been through a tough time but was out the other side. We were told his brain scan appeared normal.

Sadly, by about 9 months it was obvious that he was not the same as other babies and was not meeting his milestones.

Following a few medical appointments we were given the devastating news that he had Cerebral Palsy and the future was not looking good for him. It was likely that he would need round the clock care for the rest of his life.

Nobody would say what had caused this but in the back of our minds was the trauma he had suffered when he was born. After much deliberation, we decided to try for another child and H's brother was born in 2002. Juggling home and work commitments was proving difficult as H needed so much extra attention and I decided to go back to work full time whilst my Mike stayed at home to look after the children.

H, meanwhile had started walking at last, but we were soon to learn that he had no sense of danger and would run off if he got the chance. He was developing very slowly and started attending a special early years setting in Oxford. It was obvious that he was going to need a lot of extra support in the years to come.

The starvation of oxygen he had suffered at birth had caused considerable brain damage.

We had thought about litigation but wrongly assumed that the cost would be prohibitive and didn't realise we could apply for legal aid to investigate his claim. A chance meeting with a colleague who had also had problems with the birth of his daughter, led us to Helen Niebuhr. She came and visited us at home and explained how she could help us.

We just wanted to get some financial security for H so he could be cared for when we were no longer able. We were certainly not prepared for what laid ahead. Numerous meetings with doctors and specialists, having to retell the events of the birth and what things H could and couldn't do.

In my mind I still had doubts as to whether we would ever get an admission of liability and we just carried on life as normal.

Out of the blue in December 2007, we got a phone call with the news that liability had been admitted at last. We were ecstatic, thinking that at last it was all over. We had a fantastic Christmas that year.

The next 18 months were taken up again with more experts, more reliving of events and a difficult time for me personally. A trial date had been set and we were trying to agree the settlement without having to go to Court for a full trial.

Eventually, the settlement of around £7m was agreed out of Court and we just had to go to the High Court to get the settlement approved.

Our lives can now move on and we can put the last 10 years behind us. H is very happy in a fantastic Special School in Witney, we are able to employ carers to help look after H and we will be moving shortly into a more suitable house with a large garden so that H play safely outside.

We can now spend quality time with H's younger brother J and concentrate on being parents rather than full time carers.

We will be eternally grateful to Helen and her team at Darby's as her professionalism and determination have secured H's future for us.

When we started the claim we had never dreamed that H would have secured such a large settlement, but at the end of the day he will never be able to work or live independently and will need to have carers to look after him for the rest of his life.