Everyone needs good neighbours - and some are worth their weight in gold. Two pregnant mums from the same Bradford street made friends. One had struggled for years to have a baby before eventually finding success through IVF, the other gave birth to a baby daughter with a rare chromosome abnormality, possibly the only case worldwide. Helen Mead spoke to both about their very different experiences of pregnancy and childbirth - and how their families are helping each other.

WHEN PAUL and Rachel Howker got married in 1988 they began trying for a baby almost immediately. "We practised and practised," says Rachel, "Until we got fed up of practising."

After three years they underwent fertility tests which did not reveal any problems. Adds Rachel: "Every test came back clear so you just sort of carry on, don't you?"

Then, to their joy, Rachel became pregnant. But their elation was short-lived. The pregnancy was ectopic, where the fertilised egg implants in the fallopian tube - a potentially life-threatening condition. Rachel, 32, was admitted to hospital, where the tube was removed.

She recalls: "One minute I was pregnant and the next I was having an operation." Worse still, the tube had ruptured and shattered Rachel's ovaries, so another operation was needed to repair the damage.

"I felt absolutely drained," she says, "After three years of trying, to have this happen was terrible."

Six months later, as the couple, from Albert Avenue, Idle, Bradford, were beginning to recover from the experience, Rachel suffered a second ectopic pregnancy in her remaining tube. "Again I'd been up in the air when I was pregnant, and then all of a sudden I was really poorly and went to hospital where I was told I'd lost the baby."

Not only that. She was, she says, bluntly informed that she would never be able to conceive again. "I felt numb. It is like people are talking in slow motion but not to you, and you are listening, but it doesn't seem real. I was given a leaflet on miscarriage, but it's not the same thing. What I really wanted was a shoulder to cry on."

Indeed, had it not been for her family and friends, Rachel dreads to think what sort of state she would have been in. "They were all fantastic, particularly Paul and my mum, I have so much to thank them for."

The couple felt shell-shocked, but were determined not to give up. Because IVF treatment is not offered in Bradford, they were referred to Leeds General Infirmary. At first doctors tried to use an egg from Rachel's natural cycle, but when that didn't work, they started the treatment at a cost of £1,200. Fortunately, Rachel's course of drugs was funded by her GP in Bradford, saving the couple a lot of money.

"We were working like idiots," says Rachel: "Paul works full-time driving wagons for the council and I had three or four jobs a day - I was cleaning at various places and selling designer clothes for kids in the evenings. We never saw each other."

Their first attempt failed. Says Paul, 39: "They got one egg from it and advised us not to do it, but we thought where there's life... But it didn't work."

They were bitterly disappointed. Says Rachel: "I cried all the time. I felt like nothing or nobody mattered to me. I thought what am I put here for because I cannot have babies - I felt totally worthless."

Four months later, and Rachel took a call from LGI with the results from their second attempt. "They told me to sit down, then said it was positive. Paul was with me - I told them only to ring after he was home from work - and after I'd finished jumping about and he'd finished throwing me up and down I said "Be careful - I'm pregnant!"

Eleven eggs had been removed from Rachel and two put back - one had fertilised.

Four days before Christmas Antonia arrived. "We were over the moon, the feeling was incredible," says Paul.

Just over a year later the family had a holiday in Cape Town and, feeling relaxed, embarked on a third course of IVF, using three eggs from the same batch. The result was twins Ebony and Nathan, who are one today.

"Ebony was the spitting image of Antonia as a baby, you can't tell them apart" says Rachel. Adds Paul: "I could not believe it. To have three children after waiting all those years, it didn't seem real. They are great and we are absolutely thrilled."

Our shock at Rachel's birth

Nikki and Steven Garforth did not anticipate any problems when they started to try for a second child. The couple had experienced no problems conceiving their son, Daniel, now seven, and thought another pregnancy would be just as straightforward.

But after two years nothing had happened. Then, as they were about to start a course of fertility treatment, Nikki found out she was pregnant.

The pregnancy went without a hitch. She had a routine scan at 20 weeks that did not detect anything untoward. Yet, when the couple's daughter, Rachel, was born, that was not the case. Says Nikki, 25: "When she was born she had a cleft palate, low-set ears and her head was triangular. She also had a cyst at the base of her spine."

Nikki believes that if the scanning had been thorough at least some of these physical abnormalities would have been detected. As it was, she was oblivious, and even after giving birth, she did not find out about her daughter's condition straight away. While in labour she suffered a placental abruption, in which the placenta peels away from the wall of the womb. The rare and serious condition can be fatal and leaves doctors with just four minutes to deliver the baby or both mother and child can die.

Says Nikki: "She was born at 7.39am and I started to wake up 12 hours later. I didn't come round properly for 24 hours. I saw Steven and he said, 'Nikki, it's a girl,' but I knew from the tone of his voice that there was something wrong."

Rachel was taken from Bradford to intensive care at Halifax General Infirmary. Steven, 43, was able to visit, but it was four days before Nikki saw her. Back in Bradford, they were told that their baby had a chromosome abnormality - an unbalanced translocation of number seven and number 20 chromosomes, meaning that two pieces of chromosome had broken off, but have not remained balanced, causing abnormalities.

In a "normal" couple the condition has a one in 14 million chance of surfacing, but the couple discovered that Steven was a carrier of a balanced translocation of the two chromosomes, and the odds of them having a child with an abnormal unbalanced condition was a frightening two to one.

To their horror, there was nothing in Steven's medical records - the information was found in the records of his daughter from a previous relationship. It had come to light as part of a routine medical screening, but he was not told.

The news came as a body blow to the couple. Says Nikki: "When they first told me it was like someone taking a sledgehammer to my dreams. I love Daniel, but all I wanted was a little girl. It felt like being given something on the one hand and taken away on the other."

Using the library and Internet, the couple did their own research into the condition, which as far as they know is the only case worldwide but, says Nikki: "I could reel off a lot of facts and figures but if you throw yourself into research you miss out what is important, and that is Rachel growing up."

Now 14 months old, she has had her cleft palate corrected, but is deaf and since birth has suffered pneumonia, chest infections and a respiratory virus. Nikki and Steven do not know what the long-term prognosis is, but recently they have seen improvements in Rachel - a pretty curly haired tot - and take each day at a time.

Like Paul and Rachel, they say the support of friends has been invaluable. Says Nikki: "We found we lost a lot of friends - people just don't know what to say, so the support of those we have has meant everything to us."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.