My 3-month-old daughter died in my arms – it’s because of her I’ve built career helping kids to eat, says Annabel Karmel
I'VE always known I wanted to be a mum.
When I was 25, I married my then-husband Steve and started trying to get pregnant – and two years later, I was.
I felt very well in my pregnancy, I didn’t have morning sickness, but the birth wasn’t so great. It was a long and painful labour, but at the end of it I was just so happy to have our daughter Natasha.
The three of us came home and everything was lovely, until one day in October 1987, when she was three months old, I went into her room and she didn’t look right.
Her eyes were rolling back and she was twitching. I called my doctor and he gave me a lecture on how first-time mothers worry too much, saying: “Babies are far more robust than we think they are.”
I still felt really worried, so I took her to see him, but he still said there was nothing to be concerned about.
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The next morning, Natasha projectile vomited and looked worse, so I bundled her up and took her to another doctor.
He immediately got her a bed at Great Ormond Street Hospital because he thought there was something wrong with her brain.
They did a load of tests on her, including a CAT scan, after which they took me into a room and told me: “Your child is seriously ill. She will never be normal again.”
They thought it was probably caused by someone kissing her with a cold sore, transmitting a virus. I couldn’t believe it.
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After that, she went on a ventilator and into intensive care. I stayed with her as they kept doing tests, and for four days at the hospital I couldn’t bear to sleep or eat, it was horrendous.
After the fourth day, they called a meeting and said Natasha had lost most of the “thinking” part of her brain and that she would have no quality of life.
We had to make the decision to take her off the ventilator. We put her in a dress, and four hours later, she died in my arms.
When I returned home, all her baby things were in the house, and for weeks afterwards everyone who didn’t know she’d died would ask me: “How’s your beautiful girl?”
It was incredibly difficult. My world had been shattered, and I began to think I wouldn’t get pregnant again, or that something would happen to every child I had.
We held Natasha’s funeral not long after, and it was so hard seeing the tiny coffin.
We had to make the decision to take her off the ventilator. We put her in a dress, and four hours later, she died in my arms.
Annabel Karmel
I remember one doctor said to me: “Don’t think about having another child immediately, go through the grief first,” but I just wanted to be a mum again.
Within a few months I got pregnant with Nicholas, now 33, and he was my saviour. Having him in August 1988 gave me hope and helped me through my deep depression.
I was scared I’d lose Nicholas, too. He was a terrible sleeper and eater, which worried me, so I thought: “I’m going to cook him something myself.“
I knew I was a good cook and I couldn’t find any baby cookbooks at the time. It was the loss of Natasha and then Nicholas not eating which inspired my first book The Complete Baby & Toddler Meal Planner.
I didn’t do it to make money or for a career, it was a cathartic way of helping me come to terms with my daughter’s death, and it was for Nicholas.
My daughter Lara, 31, was a baby when the book came out in 1991, and a year later I had Scarlett, 29. With each baby, I wanted to pass the three-month mark when Natasha had died.
I think about her a lot, because if it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t have written my book and helped all these children with their eating.
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It’s also lovely for Nicholas, Lara and Scarlett, as they’ve seen me work so hard and have become entrepreneurs in their own way, which makes me proud.
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I’ve been a mentor to Lara and I feel privileged to work with her and that one day she’ll take over the business. It’s a lovely feeling that I’ve created something for my children.
- Fun, Fast & Easy Children’s Cookbook by Annabel Karmel (£11.99, Welbeck) is available now at WHSmith.