My story takes off when my Husband Mark and I travelled to the Czech Republic last August to start our <a href="https://glowing.com/glow-fertility-program">IVF</a> journey. Our first attempt failed however we were lucky enough to have a successful FET (Frozen embryo transfer) attempt at Christmas 2017 when we visited again. We called the pregnancy our Christmas Miracle.

My pregnancy started with the usual pregnancy related illnesses like sickness (all 18 weeks of it), migraines and a sinus infection which obviously couldn't be treated due to being pregnant. I also had two early pregnancy bleeds which were terrifying and we thought we had lost our miracle pregnancy. Finally I started to feel better and enjoy my pregnancy at 20 weeks once I felt well and had a good abnormality scan and no abnormalities showed up and we were growing a healthy little baby. We kept the gender a surprise.

I planned a water birth in my head as I have an obsession for water and find it relaxing, little did I know that just two weeks later my dream birth would be over, and almost the dream of holding my own baby.

On Sunday 6th May I woke up for the toilet in the early hours as usual however when I wiped I had blood stained mucus. Having had two big bleeds before I assumed it was nothing to worry about like before but I turned to the Facebook pregnancy chat group and reached out for what to do and they all advised I call the hospital. When I called they asked me to go in and take an overnight bag 'just in case''

When I arrived they assessed me and everything appeared to be OK. I had a little blood in my urine so the nurse asked for a Dr to assess me. When they examined me my membrane was protruding into my cervix. The Dr stopped the examination and said he would get a consultant to come and discuss my options but unfortunately it wasn't good news. The consultant came and gave me my options which were a stitch but there were risks and potential not to be an option depending on what happened in the next 48 hours so they were going to monitor me to ensure I had no signs of infection. Whilst I was having the consultation my waters broke and the conversation took a turn for the worse and I was told to expect to lose my baby within the next 48 hours as they expected me to go into labour and at 22+2 weeks pregnant the baby would not survive and they would not be able to help our baby and they would make it comfortable so we could say our goodbyes. I was heartbroken yet numb at the same time. I was uncontrollably crying. I cannot explain what else I felt as those moments are a complete blank other than evoking sadness again.

The next 48 hours passed and labour held off. The Drs and consultants celebrated that I'd made it past the 48 hours... What now was my question but they had no answers. It was a case of staying in hospital on bed rest and waiting to see. I could have steroids to help develop my babies lungs if by some miracle I made it to 23 weeks and we did, then 24, 26, 28 and the medical team celebrated with each milestone. My baby eventually decided it was time to come at 29+1. She (We had a beautiful baby girl) arrived in good condition and breathing by herself thanks to the two courses of steroids I had. They whisked her away after a brief encounter with her whilst they hooked her up to air to assist with her breathing and put her in an incubator and onto monitoring.

She progressed well in the QMC Nottinghan NICU and was transferred to City hospital Nottingham after a couple of weeks as she had no need to be at the Surgical hospital. Once at City she had a few events but she continued to thrive and was shortly moved to low dependency where they push them a little harder to progress and she was taken off monitoring and started preparing to go home by having things like baths, establishing a feeding routine. We were allowed to then take her down into our room at the hospital in transitional care, this is the last stage before going home but unfortunately she wasn't quite ready and she stopped breathing and went purple and floppy and Mark had to resuscitate her. It was very frightening but the medical team arrived in our room as quickly as we pressed the emergency button. We went back to high dependency for a couple of days before being moved back to low as there was no reason or explanation and was out down to reflux or head positioning cutting off her air supply.

Thankfully it's not happen again and I am sitting in the transitional care room with her typing this as she sleeps. She has fought hard and had some hurdles to jump through, thankfully not as hard as some preemies but she has got through them and is coming home this Sunday a happy and healthy little girl who shows no signs of any life long issues.

I cannot thank the staff on both Neonatal units and also B26 at QMC where I spent my time protecting my pregnancy.