Romy Silvia Satya Norell
26th March  – 18th July 2014

After a happy nine months, Romy  was born at home on Wednesday March 26th 2014 at 10:02 pm, a healthy 8lbs 15 and 3/4. Anticipating a speedy arrival, we were not surprised when she made her appearance after just two and a half hours; this did not, however, beat her sister’s record of 45 minutes! Much to our disappointment (and in D’s case, annoyance following a good two hours of trying to fill up, and keep heated, the birthing pool), Romy was not born in water like her brother. She did, however, arrive straight into her daddy’s hands.

Any parent will tell you that their baby is special, but there was always something about Romy. She was an exceptionally calm, sunny and relaxed baby and barely spent a single minute away from Ali in all of her short time with us. She loved the bath, found her brother hilarious and responded with great enthusiasm to her sister’s attempts to look after her. We all absolutely adored her. Even the cat showed intense interest in her immediately after her birth, greeting her and sitting resolutely by her side for her first couple of hours on earth. We lost count of the number of people who stopped us on the street, in shops, on buses and on the beach to tell us just how beautiful our baby was. She drew people to her and seemed to engage with them in a way that was far beyond her young age. Her cornflower blue eyes were mesmerising and so often commented on – especially as we both have brown eyes!

On Thursday 17th July, Ali and Romy went out to visit a neighbouring village for coffee – their last day alone for some time as her brother and sister were about to finish school and preschool for the summer. During their trip Romy was much admired and fussed over, and enjoyed time on Mummy’s lap being sung to and kissed. She fell asleep on the way home in the car.

On arriving home, Romy suddenly seemed to have difficulty breathing and we were taken straight to Brighton’s Royal Alex Hospital where a specialist children’s A&E team worked very hard for her, trying to understand what was happening and ensuring that she wasn’t in any pain. An MRI scan showed that she had a massive bleed to the brain. We were then transferred to a specialist paediatric neurosurgical unit at King’s College Hospital in London, who determined that the bleed was so significant that they sadly didn’t think it was survivable. In their view, while the precise cause is not clear, it was likely something that Romy was born with which could have manifested at any time.

On Friday 18th July at around 4:15pm we held our beautiful little girl in our arms as she left this world and entered another. Just as she arrived into her daddy’s hands, she left us from their safety and love.