A new father has endured a heartbreak like no other after he lost his wife and his newborn baby girl just hours apart.

Craig Renton and his wife Heidi, 31, were excitedly expecting their first child together.

Until everything change on August 4, when Craig returned home at lunchtime to find his wife in pain.

After calling the hospital, they were advised to head in for a check-up and the pair set off on the 30km journey to Kings Mill Hospital.

Only a few minutes into the trip, Heidi fainted before having a seizure.

“I was horrified.. she started fitting and her lips turned blue, as though she was being starved of oxygen,” Mr Renton told The Mirror.

She was taken to hospital by ambulance and was sent to the resuscitation area on arrival.

Mr Renton was sent to the family waiting room and after what must have been the longest 10 minutes of his life, a teary-eyed medical team came to meet him.

“One sat with me and said something I’ll never forgot. “I’m sorry your wife has died’. But then he added…’Would you like to meet your baby girl?’,” Mr Renton recalled.

Hospital staff had managed to deliver his baby daughter by emergency caesarean just moments before his wife’s death.

The devastated husband headed straight to his wife’s bedside to tell her she was now a mum and that he loved her.

But moments after the difficult task of calling Heidi’s parents to tell them of their daughter’s death and the birth of their newborn granddaughter, disaster struck once again.

Scans on his daughter, weighing 8lb 2oz, had revealed she had no brain activity, a potential after-effect of Heidi being deprived of oxygen during her seizure.

After being on a ventilator after her birth, Mr Renton made the difficult decision to turn the machine off.

“Although I only knew her for 15 hours I grew to love her so much. She and Heidi were, and always will be, the loves of my life,” he said.

Mr Renton named their daughter Isabella, a name Heidi had previously told her husband was her favourite.

The family are still unsure what actually caused her death, and while an investigation is still ongoing, it is believed to be natural causes.

RIP our thoughts are with Craig at this terribly sad time.

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