The woman will be buried in a "small service" with no mourners.
Trigger Warning: This story mentions miscarriage and might be disturbing to readers.
A woman who made international headlines after she announced she was expecting octuplets has died at 56 after developing cancer.
In 1996, a 31-year-old Mandy Allwood had first announced that she was expecting eight children—after taking fertility drugs—with her then-partner Paul Hudson. The woman gave birth to six boys and two girls, who were born over three days and three nights, tragically did not survive, per Sky News.
“Over three days and nights I miscarried eight times," she told the Mirror’s Sunday People in 2013. “I cradled each of them for two and a half hours as they died in my arms. It was horrible. Truly horrible. When I felt the last one coming, I said, ‘Please, God, let at least one of them live’.”
Allwood would regularly lay flowers for her eight children at West Norwood Cemetery in South London. “You will never forget your little boy or girl but you can’t change it. You will always have those memories and you will come through it," she said.
The woman then went on to have three more children after the demise of all eight of her babies, but losing Kypros, Adam, Martyn, Cassius, Nelson, Donald, Kitali and Layne, is something she never recovered from.
Eventually, she struggled with depression, lost custody of her three surviving children, and became estranged from her family.
'Octomom' who gave birth to eight babies and lost them all, dies at age 56https://t.co/eyougm3SKp
— TheSouthAfrican.com (@TheSAnews) February 4, 2022
In 1996, 'Octomom' Mandy Allwood gave birth to eight babies who all died. After suffering from depression for many years, she has also died.
Meanwhile, according to The Sun, she will be buried in a "small service", a friend said, who added that there will be no mourners.
"She had been struggling with cancer for a while and had an operation before Christmas but told us recently that it had come back. I don't know what sort of cancer it was," her friend, 59-year-old Mark Beard said.
Beard, the landlord of the Yard of Ale pub in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, revealed that Allwood would pop in his bar twice a week, and said she was "loved" by the locals. Beard went on to mention that about a dozen of her friends planned to "raise a glass" to her life on the day of the funeral.
He recalled his friend as someone who was always up for a chat. “She blended in really well and was always up for a chat. She was a bit eccentric and nutty but that’s why we loved her. She sometimes spoke about what happened to her, with the eight babies. People would often ask her about it. When we first met she told us who she was and she said she had been in magazines in the past but that was it,” said Beard.
"We are sending some flowers for the small service. The undertaker is sending some, too. It’s very sad that she won’t have anyone at her funeral. They just say a little prayer and it’s all over in five minutes I think,” he added.
“She just didn’t have anybody really and I don’t think she was in touch with her family at all. It’s a shame."
“The flowers are going to be brought back here and put on the bar and around a dozen of us will be raising a glass to her. We wanted to mark it somehow. It only seems right,” added Beard.
References:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17539199/octomum-mandy-allwood-dead-cancer/
https://news.sky.com/story/octomum-mandy-allwood-dies-of-cancer-aged-56-12532658
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/octomum-mandy-allwood-reveals-anguish-2291552
Cover Image Source: YouTube | news.com.au (Octomum dead at 56 after tragic life that saw her lose all eight babies)
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