Colvina Jolin suffered a life-threatening brain haemorrhage that left her in a coma for three months - during which she gave birth to a daughter

And when she woke up, Colvina Jolin discovered that she had given birth to a baby girl.

The Hampshire mum, who was a nurse on a high dependency unit, knew something was wrong when, at 23 weeks pregnant, she felt an ‘intense headache’ while doing housework and collapsed.

She had suffered a massive haemorrhage which had pushed her brain sideways against her skull and down towards her spinal cord.

At one point she was given just a ten percent chance of survival, while her baby, who was delivered at 29 weeks by caesarian section, had to be resuscitated twice.

Colvina was rushed to the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth before being transferred to Southampton General Hospital for life saving surgery.

Her family was told that she had just a one-in-ten chance of surviving the 22-mile transfer, but that she would die without it.

“It was devastating,” said Colvina’s mum, Sue Walder, a social worker for Hampshire County Council.

“The last thing you expect is for your 27-year-old daughter to have a massive aneurysm.

“Until she was fully out of the coma, we didn’t know if she was going to be OK or not – we didn’t know what kind of injury she’d suffered.”

At Southampton General Hospital, Colvina was rushed into theatre, where she was operated on by consultant neurosurgeon Mr Emad Shenouda who removed the clot within ten minutes.

Colvina’s husband Matt was told that the surgeon had never seen anyone survive anything like it, but that she was young. He went from looking forward to becoming a father to fearing he was about to lose his wife of just over a year and child.

Colvina was transferred to the Wessex Neurological Centre at Southampton General Hospital, where she was cared for by Dr Andy Eynon, consultant in intensive care.

“We felt her chances were very poor,” said Dr Eynon.

“Her only chance was immediate emergency neurosurgery. Then we had to give her time to see if she could survive.

“We had to explain to her family that some of the treatments we had to do to save her life might have an effect on the baby.”

Dr Eynon says that the most likely cause of her aneurysm was an arteriovenous malformation, an abnormal collection of blood vessels, which bled spontaneously, unconnected to Colvina’s pregnancy.

“I’ve been in Southampton for thirteen years,” says Dr Eynon.

“Each year we see 750-800 patients and in that time we’ve had three babies delivered on the ward, so it’s very rare.”

Colvina remained in a coma, but Sue noticed her daughter rubbing her bump “as if she still sensed she was pregnant.”

At 29 weeks, Colvina went into labour spontaneously and Maia was delivered by caesarian section, weighing just 3 lb.

Maia had to be resuscitated twice and was placed in an incubator.

Ten days later, Colvina had come round sufficiently from her coma to be able to meet her baby, but it took six weeks for her to be fully out of the coma.

She wasn’t able to meet her daughter immediately as she was in the Wessex Neurological Centre at Southampton General Hospital, while Maia was being cared for at the nearby Princess Anne Hospital.

“When they first brought Maia up to meet Colvina in an incubator she was still in the coma but she sat up and reached her arm out,” says Sue.

“She knew her baby was there.”

Colvina says: “I know it sounds stupid, but I never remember not having her. It’s as if she was always there, even though I was in a coma when she was born.”

Sue adds that she knew soon after Colvina came out of the coma that she was her same old self.

“One of the first things she did was tell someone to ‘shut up’ and then she burst into laughter – we knew she was back,” she says.

It is almost a year since Colvina suffered the life-changing haemorrhage that came so close to taking both her own life and that of her unborn child.

Today Maia is a happy and healthy baby and Colvina is loving being a new mum.

She and Matt moved in with Colvina’s parents in Horndean, Hampshire as their own home in Peterfield was not suitable for them.

Colvina is still recovering from the aneurysm. She has learnt to walk again but has muscle weakness on one side and is working on regaining full speech.

She can cuddle and feed her little girl but cannot pick her up and struggles to change her nappies, so two assistants to help her, but she is very much in charge of raising her little girl.

She is showing improvements all the time and plans to return to her nursing career, although on a less intense ward than high dependency, where she was previously working.

She is hugely grateful to all the staff who worked so hard to save her and Maya and get her back on her feet.

“I want to express my admiration and deepest thanks for the dedicated hospital teams who saved my and Maia’s life: the paramedics, Queen Alexandra emergency department staff, all the staff on the Southampton Wessex Neurological intensive care unit and the fabulous team of the Phoenix Ward (FI) in the Queen Alexandria Hospital,” she said.

“I also owe thanks for the ongoing hard work of my PAs, the community teams and the Stroke Society.”

Colvina will be visiting Dr Eynon and the team who cared for her at Southampton General Hospital next week, on the anniversary of her life-saving surgery.

“We never know how well someone is going to recover,” said Dr Eynon.

“Their time with us is very much the start of their journey. We recognise that recovery can take place over three or four years.

“It’s nice that she’s coming back to visit the unit. It’s lovely to see how far people have come on. To see someone rebuilding their life after something so devastating is wonderful - it really makes it for us.”