The arrival of a new-born baby is usually a time of joy and celebration for parents – but for one young mum, the delight was cut short.

Only 25 days after giving birth to her second son, Swindon mum Emma George suffered a stroke that changed her life forever.

“It was Thursday, and my mum had come to stay, as my partner’s paternity leave had finished. I was sitting on the sofa, and my elder son, who was 20 months, was sitting on my lap as I was feeding him. I felt a sharp pain in my temple. I dropped the bowl. Pain washed over me, I felt very weak, with no energy.

"I shouted to my mum that I didn’t feel well. I remember saying, I think I’ve had a stroke – I’m not sure why but I think my face felt like it had dropped.”

Emma’s mother, Vivienne Street, came in from the kitchen and realised something bad had happened. She called an ambulance, which took an hour to arrive, and Emma was taken to hospital. Her mother stayed home to take care of the children.

“They did a battery of tests, including a lumbar puncture and scans, and did not automatically assume it was a stroke, but I was completely powerless down my left side, and blind in my left eye. I had also lost the peripheral vision in my right eye,” Emma says.

“But I can’t remember being afraid. It was almost surreal.”

Emma was living in Rochdale at the time and was treated at Rochdale Infirmary. They discovered the stroke had happened in the occipital lobe, and Emma was treated with blood thinners. While the blood clot disappeared quickly, the damage it had done was widespread and profound.

She stayed in hospital for five weeks. Instead of enjoying the magic first weeks with her new baby, she had to begin intensive physiotherapy to go through the gruelling process of learning to use her body again.

“I had a brilliant young physiotherapist who didn’t want me to leave the hospital till I could walk out,” Emma recalls. “She said the longer I could stay the better, so I could get more physio.

“There was a lot to learn. A lot of placement – standing still and putting my foot in one place, and another, in front and back. You have to retrain your brain.”

She could not sit up at first and could not use her left side at all. Emma had to practise her fine motor skills, putting little pegs into a board. But she says she never worried about the possibility she would not make a decent recovery.

“I never thought about that – not in a conscious way. I have always been very determined,” she says. “I was supposed to call for help if I needed to get up, but I just hoisted myself up. Occasionally I used to fall – I would just forget I couldn’t just turn round.

"I don’t ever remember thinking, I can’t do this.”

Slowly Emma began to regain control. She had to practise standing up on tiptoes, and she was committed to doing her exercises.

“There is a higher risk of having a stroke postpartum, in the first year after having a baby,” she says.

Strokes in the period after childbirth are thought to be caused by changes in hormone levels and the volume of blood in the body.

“The time I missed with my new son – that’s my biggest regret,” Emma explains. “I had post natal depression after having my first son, Patrick. He was born six weeks’ premature and I had to leave him in the hospital. I fell pregnant again within a year, and I thought this time it would be perfect.

"But I did miss out with Harry. I loved being pregnant, and he was a perfect baby.”

Her former partner’s sister and mother stepped in to help care for the two young boys while Emma was recovering in hospital.

When finally she came home, Emma had plenty of support, with support workers ad child minders coming in to help her – something she says she appreciates enormously.

I had everything I could want for a year,” she said. “And I had a hand rail on my stairs, I had a seat for the bath so I could sit in the shower.”

But Emma, now 43, still feel the effects of the stroke. She has never recovered the peripheral vision on her left side, and her hand and her leg shake. Her ability to map spaces in her mind has been reduced, so she can feel lost and disorientated very easily.

The stroke happened in November 2005. Now Emma’s sons are 14 and 12, and she works as an accounts clerk for Edmont in Swindon.

“The boys are aware of it. They will help me. It just makes me tired. I rest quite a lot,” she says. “I am quite open about it, and never shy of talking to people.”

But she admits it can get tiring having to explain to people why she might not see something, or why she might accidentally bump her trolley into someone else’s.

Unfortunately others might not always perceive a disability which is not visible or obvious.

“I would like people to be more aware of the impact of having a stroke. They can affect people’s cognitive and fine motor skills,” she says. But not all the effects of Emma’s stroke have been negative.

“It makes you think about life as a whole, more aware of your own mortality. It made me less scared of dying, and more empathetic with people -not so self-absorbed,” she reflects.

More recently, Emma has been diagnosed with two further health conditions – she has polycystic liver and kidney disease, and Crohn’s. But she remains positive and has recently taken up a pescatarian diet.

“I take anti-depressants, which help keep me on the level. Without them I would probably be more negative and self critical,” she says.

Emma loves the outdoors, gardening and nature. She has two dogs and enjoys rock music and going to gigs.

“We need to seize the day and the moment, and experience life,” she says.

“But I would like people to be more aware of those with disabilities – and do not assume because a disability is invisible that it is not there.

"It can be hard when I feel so different but nobody can see it.”

For more information about the symptoms and effects of stroke, visit www.stroke.org.uk.