Mansfield mum taking on Ben Nevis challenge in aid of heart charity that supported her through darkest days

Amie Whitehouse, aged 44, is joining a group from Mansfield’s West Nottinghamshire College to climb Ben Nevis in Scotland on Saturday, July 8.

They will be doing it in aid of the British Heart Foundation, which was there to support Amie and her husband Simon each step of the way after their son was born with a hole in his heart – and had to undergo open-heart surgery aged just three.

Thirteen years ago, Mansfield police officer Amie was given the bleak news one of the twins she had already seen cuddling with his sister on a scan might not survive beyond birth after being diagnosed with a potentially deadly heart condition.

Amie and husband Simon, who also works for Nottinghamshire Police, had a tough choice to make, but having seen their son Charlie with twin Phoebe on earlier scans they took the difficult decision to do nothing.

And today, Charlie is a lively teenager, playing football, fishing and doing many of the other things children his age enjoy.

Amie, a schools' early intervention officer for the police, first found out there was a problem with her son’s heart at her 20-week scan.

She said: “When they showed us his heart’s four divided chambers, there was clearly quite a big chunk missing.

“At that point there were lots of hushed voices. They took us into what I referred to as the ‘bad news room’ at the hospital where there’s a sofa and a lamp and said, ‘there’s a bit of a problem with his scan’.

“We went to another hospital and someone more senior looked at the scan.

“We were taken to another ‘bad news room’ and were given a leaflet that talked about termination and different syndromes he could be born with.”

Charlie was diagnosed with a heart condition called atrioventricular septal defect, which meant he had a hole in his heart.

Amie was offered an amniocentesis, a medical procedure which tests her amniotic fluid, to see if her son had any specific chromosomal issues.

However, when she asked what she called the “obvious question” of what would happen if there was a problem, the answer did not reassure her or Simon.

Amie said: “They said they would inject his heart to stop it and he would have to be in the womb with Phoebe until he was delivered.

“I was just heartbroken after having seen them both cuddled up together on various scans.

“The consultant told us the worst-case scenario was he wouldn’t suffer, he would pass away as he was delivered, or shortly afterwards, so we decided to leave things as they were.”

When the babies were born in March 2010, she and Simon were overjoyed to have the news that, apart from the large hole in Charlie’s heart, he was healthy.

But they could not relax as they were advised Charlie would probably need surgery to fix the hole by the time he was four.

As he grew, regular scans showed his heart was starting to struggle – leading to surgery at Leicester’s Glenfield Hospital.

Amie said: “He was in theatre for eight hours and it was the absolute worst thing either me or my husband had ever been through.

“The first thing I asked the consultant when we got back to the hospital was ‘is he alive?’ and he said ‘yes, of course he’s alive!’”

Amie said: “He still has regular check-ups, but he’s 13 now and although his heart has got a very small murmur, there’s nothing major they think they will have to rectify in the near future, so he’s a healthy lad just doing what other boys his age can do.

“But at every appointment we went to, the BHF nurse was there, every step of the way, supporting us and Charlie, so I wanted to give something back.”

Amie – who worked at the college while taking a career break from the police – will just be glad to get up and down Ben Nevis again safely as she suffers from lipoedema, which means her legs are likely to swell up and she gets a lot of aches and pains.

But she will be spurred on by her cause, with the money she raises going toward’s BHF’s life-saving research.

She said “Everyone going had to pick a charity close to their heart to fundraise for. It was easy for me – for obvious reasons it was always going to be the British Heart Foundation”.

To support Amie, visit shorturl.at/pyAR8