A MUM-to-be who lost her twins and underwent a life-saving liver transplant while in an induced coma says the ordeal has spurred her to live her “best life”.

When Louise Prashad woke three weeks later she had lost months of memories, did not recognise her partner and had to be told her babies had died just weeks before their due date.

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Now, three years later Louise and her husband Max, of Holgate, York, have raised £800 for a remembrance bench in their honour and they have been in contact with the liver donor’s family to thank them for the gift of life they gave Louise.

Louise, now 25, said: “The last month of the pregnancy I started to get a lot more tired and a lot of sickness and abdominal pain, a lot of nosebleeds as well, and bleeding gums.

“One evening I woke up and vomited two pints of blood. Max was just about to go to work, but called an ambulance and I was rushed to hospital.”

Doctors discovered Louise was suffering from 'acute fatty liver of pregnancy' - a condition that affects one woman in 10,000 and which can be fatal. The condition meant Mia and Leo were 'born sleeping' at 37 weeks - something Louise did not know about until she woke up three weeks later.

Max, now 30, said: “Louise is basically my best friend, the person I talk to whenever anything happens. Before Louise passed out, she said to me ‘Max, I’m going to die’. Those were her last words to me.”

Louise underwent a liver transplant while she was unconscious, and Max said when she woke up, she was suffering from amnesia and could not remember the months leading up to her illness.

Max, who works at a restaurant in York, said: “I’m not a massively emotional person, and for the majority of it I didn’t cry, but when the twins were delivered, I had a massive breakdown and couldn’t cope for a while. I pulled myself together and slept in the waiting room for three weeks.

“When she woke up, I was so happy and relieved and wanted to give her a cuddle, but she was more distant than anything. She had no recollection of who I was.

“I was trying to jog her memory about our life, but she would forget after we talked about it. I thought that was going to be a permanent thing.”

Nurses told Max and Louise’s parents they needed to explain what had happened once she regained consciousness as it would help her recover more quickly.

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Louise, who works for City of York Council, said: “Mum came in and broke the news that Mia and Leo weren’t here anymore. I screamed the place down. A really kind nurse looked after me so well, just held me for hours. It was awful and I still hadn’t realised I had the transplant. It was the worst day of my life.

“I didn’t get to spend any time with Mia and Leo during that time. A really kind bereavement worker came up and was just an amazing person who spoke to me like they were still here, said she’d been looking after them both, put them in clothes and my mum had helped her. I wasn’t well enough to go down so they brought them up to the room which was such a kind thing to do and it could have been really distressing for other people, but they did it for me and it was amazing.”

Louise had to learn to walk and write again, but once she left intensive care, managed to visit the chapel of rest and spend some time with Mia and Leo before the funeral.

She said: “Obviously, it was the worst thing but also the best thing. I just wanted them to wake up, but it wasn’t going to happen.”

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The couple now have a daughter, Ava, who has just turned one, and have raised £800 to place a memorial bench in Rowntree Park in tribute to Mia and Leo.

Louise said: “I didn’t think I would have another child. Ava is amazing. April 25 will be Mia and Leo’s birthday, so we’re hoping to get the bench in place by then. I was trying to think of something positive I could do. The last few years have been a whirlwind of emotion and grief, that never really stops.

“I wanted something in our home city we could visit with Ava on special occasions, when we need some time out to think about them, or having a hard day. Somewhere we could go that’s a memorial and not a grave.”

Louise said her donor was a woman in her 50s, and she had managed to contact the woman’s family.

She said: “A couple of months after I got out of hospital I felt really guilty, like my body had let me down and I wanted to let my donor’s family know where their mum’s organ had gone and it hadn’t gone to waste. I wanted them to know what they had done for me and that I felt their pain and grief and told them I would do everything in my power to let people know the power of organ donation. It’s a bit of a cliché but I wanted them to know I’d live my best life because it must have been so difficult for them to make that decision.

“I wrote back again recently. I wanted them to know their mum had allowed me to become a mum again. When she got the first letter, it was all too much because she’d lost her mum very suddenly, but she’d just had children and wanted us to know how proud her mum would have been for me as she was a real family woman and she would like to meet one day. I was at work and just burst into tears.”

Louise is still undergoing physiotherapy to improve her mobility following her transplant, but said she was hoping to make her way round the York 10k later this year to raise money to help parents in similar situations. While she will not be able to run the route, her father Steve Brown and friends Bethany Harper and Jane Maddison are running it for her. They will all wear shirts raising awareness of organ donation, and Louise views the event as a challenge to show how far she has come in three years.

She said: “I get tired very quickly and I don’t have a lot of abdominal muscle strength.

“My dad’s a very keen runner and said even if I can’t run it he thinks people would still appreciate it and it’s something to work towards.

“It will feel like such an accomplishment, coming from the ICU to walking 10km.”

l To donate, go to justgiving.com/crowdfunding/miaandleoyork10k