Cork mother celebrates birth of 'miracle baby girl' after 23 miscarriages

Georgina O'Shea and her husband Ken with their son Leon after the birth of baby Rylee last week. 

A mother celebrating the birth of her “miracle baby girl” after 23 miscarriages has urged couples struggling to have a family to never give up hope.

Thrilled Georgina O’Shea issued the inspirational words of encouragement as she introduced her newborn daughter, Rylee, to the world on Wednesday. “She is a little miracle. Miracles do happen,” the Cork mum said. 

Georgina, who gave birth to her son Leon in 2004, said she and her husband, Ken, who live in Macroom, were delighted when she became pregnant again in 2008. But their joy turned to heartbreak when she suffered a miscarriage. It was to be the first of a string of devastating miscarriages over the years, each one as painful a loss as the last.

She tried various drugs and attended a specialist in the US after her seventh miscarriage where experts identified two possible causes for her baby losses.

They suggested that her womb might be rejecting each pregnancy and that a scratch procedure to the endometrial lining could stimulate the uterus’ receptivity to the embryo and increase the success rate of live birth, or suggested that because her blood type is rhesus negative, her immune system might be attacking each pregnancy.

She was given steroid treatments, but still the miscarriages continued. “It kind of became normal,” Georgina told Neil Prendeville on Cork’s RedFM.

“I kind of built up a barrier to protect my own mental health. 

Every time we fell pregnant, I felt sorrow because we knew where it was going.

“I’ve always believed that what’s meant to be won’t pass you by and that there was a reason I was given this cross to bear.” 

Four years ago, she experienced an ectopic pregnancy and after one of her tubes was removed, doctors said the scarring in the other was so severe that another pregnancy was unlikely. Georgina said she was resigned to the fact that she may never have a second child, and that when the couple became pregnant again last September, they held out little hope.

But this pregnancy was different from the start. Under the care of Professor Keelin O’Donoghue and her team at Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH), Georgina was monitored closely, with appointments almost every two weeks, and at their first scan, they saw their baby, offering a glimmer of hope.

They detected a heartbeat at the second scan — something they hadn’t picked up in scans for years — but still the couple dared not to get too excited.

“I built a barrier to protect myself. It was 23 weeks before I knew it was a viable pregnancy and then at 30 weeks, the fear began to creep in again because we were so close, yet so far,” Georgina said.

Then last week, baby Rylee finally arrived safe and healthy at CUMH after a 45-minute labour, weighing in at 7lbs 6ozs. There were tears of joy in the labour wards afterwards.

Baby Rylee who was born last week.

“I looked up at Ken when she was born, and his face was soaked with tears,” Georgina said. Midwives also brought Leon into the ward to meet his baby sister, and Georgina said he was “walking on cloud nine”.

She praised Prof. O’Donoghue and her team at CUMH and said she could not have done it without them. And with Leon's partner also expecting a baby, the family are now looking forward to another new arrival in a few weeks.