By
Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 5:47 PM on 22nd December 2011
The girlfriend of a Royal Marine who was killed while serving in Afghanistan has had his baby – just in time for Christmas.
Baby Lily Marie Wright is said to be the spitting image of her father, Royal Marine James Wright, who decided on her name before he flew to the war-zone.
But tragically he was killed by an insurgent’s grenade in August aged just 22, when Shelley Robertson was expecting their first child.
Shelley Robertson (right), 23, from Dorset, was 26 weeks pregnant with Lily Marie (pictured) when she had to attend her boyfriend Royal Marine James Wright’s (left) military funeral.
The heartbroken 23-year-old, from Weymouth, Dorset, had to attend her boyfriend’s military funeral when she was 26 weeks pregnant.
Now she is preparing to spend Christmas with newborn Lily and the couple’s extended family, including James’ parents.
She has already been visited by James’ former comrades in 42 Commando, who intend to tell little Lily all about her father as she grows up.
Shelley, who works at Dorchester prison, said the baby would have been ‘daddy’s little girl’ after the couple chose her name before James left home for the final time.
She said: ‘We wanted to have the middle name as Marie because that’s my middle name and we both liked the name Lily and James liked the flower.
With her father, Geoff Robertson, 61. He says the arrival of the new baby is bittersweet but offers new hope
‘Lily would have been Daddy’s little girl.
‘Her facial expressions are a lot like James’s. I think she looks a lot like him apart from the nose.
‘I had dark hair as a baby and James had fair hair like Lily.
‘I’ve got so many cuttings about James in a box that I’m going to give to Lily when she’s older.
‘I’ve saved his kit which I’m going to give to her and all his friends are going to tell her stories about what he was like in the Marines.’
Baby Lily was born in Dorset County Hospital on December 3, weighing 6lbs and 15.5ozs.
Since
she has been home from hospital, she has been regularly visited by
James’s parents David and Sallie and his sister Katie, as well as her
own parents Bev and Geoff.
Geoff Robertson, 61, said his granddaughter’s birth offers hope following on from the tragedy of James’s death.
He said: ‘For James’s family and all of us, the only thing that was giving us light at the end of the tunnel was thinking about the baby coming.
‘Relief was the main thing we felt upon seeing Lily because we had one chance with her.
‘We were relieved that everything had gone without mishap.
‘Everyone was awaiting her arrival.
‘It’s a bittersweet moment. It’s a positive thing.
‘The pain of losing James won’t go away but at least now, with Lily, we can bear it with a smile.’
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