SHE feared she would never have a baby after undergoing four heart operations as a child.
But Kerry Hodges overcame the odds to give birth to her son Luke in 1996 - and now she’s about to become ‘the proudest woman in York’ as he prepares to get married on Friday.
Kerry, 47, of Acomb, said: “I am over the moon - just to be here, to be honest. When I was young, they didn’t think I would see my teens.
“To be here and see him getting married is unbelievable.It’s a dream come true.”
Kerry said she was only 10 weeks old when she first had surgery on a faulty aortic valve.
Further operations were carried out at Killingbeck Hospital, Leeds, when she was six, nine and 15.
She said she feared becoming pregnant would be too great a strain on her heart and also believed the drug she took to prevent her blood clotting would harm her baby.
Her surgeon, Duncan Walker, told her it would not be a problem if she was careful.
She had a pacemaker fitted when she was only eight weeks pregnant with Luke and visited York Hospital every week for blood tests to check the level of the anti-coagulant Warfarin, which she had taken since she was nine.
The doctors advised her there was a slim chance of Luke having a hare-lip or a cleft-palate, but she said he was ‘perfect’ when he was born by caesarean section.
Now he works as a plumber and is training to be a gas engineer, and he is set to get married on Friday, aged 21, to Sarah Cockerill, 21, a nursery nurse, of Rawcliffe, in a ceremony taking place at Mercure York Fairfield Manor Hotel.
“I’m going to cry,” said Kerry. “We are such a close family.”
Kerry, who works as a midday supervisory assistant at Poppleton Road School and also at the after-school club, said she was a fit and healthy person nowadays, although she had tests every year and would eventually need a heart valve to be replaced.
Luke, whose father Stephen will be the best man, said his mother’s childhood heart problems had made it a ‘bit of a miracle’ he was born and she could be at his wedding, adding: “It makes it extra special.”
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