The months before Emily’s birth went smoothly, the doctors all predicted a large and happy baby but all that changed when Kirsty ( my fiancee ) went in for a routine pregnancy check-up three weeks before her due date the doctors spotted a problem and decided there and then that they would have to do an emergency caesarean. We were thrust straight into parenthood and after the birth things became even more hectic.

So Emily was born at 4.30pm on 29th of August at the Wolverhampton New Cross Hospital and weighed only 4 lbs 4 oz. Emily was immediately taken away from them both after the birth and put into the special care unit for a full examination. It was found that Emily's digestive tract was blocked and would require surgery and they quickly moved her to Birmingham Children's Hospital in the early hours of the following morning for the operation. This was an understandably tense time and the family was separated in different hospitals. The surgery was risky and the outcome look uncertain but Emily showed her strength and returned to us – it appeared that everything had gone smoothly.

She started to recuperate and we thought they were out of the woods but the recovery slowed and Emily’s vital signs started to fall. A cardiology team were immediately called and they spotted during an ultrasound scan that Emily had another more serious problem. She was suffering from a condition called Hypo-plastic Left Heart Syndrome - which is a very rare birth defect when the left hand side of the heart hasn’t fully developed in the womb.

Had this been a few years ago, they would have had no choice but to allow Emily to drift away BUT Medical science can perform almost miracles these days and new techniques have been discovered practiced and researched over the last few years that allow this almost impossible situation to be overcome. Only 5 medical centres in the world treat this condition because it is so rare and one of them just happens to be the Birmingham Children Hospital - the very hospital that Emily was in for the initial bowel surgery.

So in a strange way - fate was smiling on us that day.

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