A mother has revealed her heartache after she became a widow at the age of just 27 – shortly giving birth to their eighth child.
Cloe Green, from Dyffryn Ardudwy, North Wales, said she tried desperately to save husband James’s life and even performed CPR, but he died in his sleep aged 31.
Cloe, who met her childhood sweetheart when they were both teenagers, has revealed her struggle in being left alone to care for their brood – and her disappointment that they never got a family photo together.
Cloe said it was just 12 weeks after she had given birth to the couple’s youngest child, Elijah, that her world caved in. Cloe said:
‘It was so sudden and so shocking. To think James won’t be here to see the large family he wanted so much grow up breaks my heart.
‘When it happened I wanted to cry – but I looked at those eight little faces all depending on me and I knew I had to do this for them and for James.Nobody can replace James. He loved being a dad so much. I am devastated he was taken from us but pleased he got his wish of us having our eighth baby.
‘He would say “just one more” and wink at me.’
However, Cloe, who is now crowdfunding to raise £5,000 to finish the garden for the children than James never had a chance to finish, said she is trying to put her grief aside to be a mother and a father to their children.
She believes the hardest thing she has ever had to do is tell children Leo, nine, Levi, six, Oliver, five, Megan, four, Miley, three, Lacey, two, Lexi, 20 months and Elijah, 11 months that their daddy had gone to heaven.
The couple had first child Leo when Cloe was just 17.
Cloe explained:
‘It was a shock because we were so young but James took it in his stride. He just smiled and said he always wanted to be a dad.’
‘Two years later I was pregnant again with another son, Oliver, and when he was just six weeks old I was expecting again – we were both so excited to be having our first daughter.We married and soon after I gave birth to Megan”
Cloe asked her GP for the contraceptive implant but it failed and she was soon pregnant again.
