We will never forget Monday 23rd July. We walked into the Neonatal and instinct told us that little Charlotte was not well. It was almost too much to bare. We had by this point read many leaflets and information about premature babies and the way Charlotte looked was like a little baby in distress.

We asked to see a doctor straight away. They told us that Charlotte had the Candida fungal infection (Thrush) . It was quite rare and would need a long dose of very strong antibiotics. We couldn’t stay long that day. To see her looking so ill, our little girl, was too hard. We left after only 20 minutes heartbroken and felt guilty that we couldn’t stay longer. She had been put back onto the ventilator and was very poorly.

During this second week we saw our little baby improve. By the Thursday 26th we had a good day. She was off the ventilator and looking well. Doctors had said that the valve in her heart which remained open instead of shut at birth had now closed after taking the medicine. We were elated. A big step forward and again our confidence grew.

The biggest emotional roller coaster of our lives was just about to start.

For Mum her feelings from the very start were one of failure….

I had failed Ali and I had failed Charlotte. I also felt cheated out of the wonderful experience of pregnancy. I had only just got used to being pregnant, and also just started to feel her move. But now she had arrived 4 months early and was now in an incubator in Neonatal Intensive Care 60 miles away from home.

My emotions were dictating to me that she should be in my belly and not in an incubator, and this was the thought that went through my head so many times. I constantly felt as if I was mourning and that my baby had been taken away from my body. I was desperate to be pregnant again. I just wanted her back where she belonged – in my stomach.

For Dad his feelings from the very start were one of utter uselessness….

I felt I had failed Samantha after watching her in unbelievable pain for 72 hours and felt unbelievable guilt that I had been unable to do anything to alleviate her pain. As a scared partner and observer I will never forget the relief at 13:31 pm on that Sunday that, after 72 hours of watching Samantha having to endure the labour pains and feeling totally useless and unable to help other than hold the oxygen mask, Charlotte had been finally been born. I had to sit and watch her have labour pains every 5-10 minutes and could do nothing other than time them using my watch so as to warn her when the pain was coming next and when it would be over.

With the precision and speed of a tyre change on a grand prix circuit Charlotte had been taken from Samantha, whisked onto into the incubator, hooked up to a multitude of tubes and then within minutes the incubator was gone, as was our daughter, she had been moved at lightening speed into an intensive care unit the other side of the Hospital. Our Daughter was gone and we did not even know if she was alive or what condition she was in.

I have never gone into shock or passed out before in my life, as I said to Samantha it is not manly, but sadly the Nurses saw me about to topple and got me to lay down before I did and got me an oxygen mask, they then all stepped over me for the next 20 minutes or so until I recovered.

Before I had time to even take this in, Samantha started to shake violently as she went into septic shock, and 5 or 6 Nurses appeared as if out of nowhere, covered her in blankets, and before I knew it she had tubes inserted into both arms and was hooked to various Monitors which was scary.

They also informed us that she needed to go into Theatre as soon as possible to try and remove the Placenta which had broken apart and was still inside her and poisoning her, and if that was not bad enough she also had a blockage in her lungs and had to be put on oxygen. It seemed as if anything which could possibly go wrong had gone wrong. I had a nervous few hours as she was in theatre and was allowed to sleep in a put up bed beside her overnight in Intensive care, I could not sleep a second, as I really thought that I would lose them both. I had both my ladies in Intensive care and had my third night without sleep but the doctors managed to remove the blockage in her lungs and at midday the next day she came off the oxygen mask and was able to come out of intensive care. She remained in Hospital for another week but finally the first of my Ladies came home.

The sheer amount of dedication, professionalism, caring and expertise shown by everyone involved in the NHS Labour, Maternity and Neonatal unit at St Mary’s Hospital in Portsmouth has made a lasting impression upon both of us and we could not hold them in higher esteem than we now do.

We look forward to Charlotte coming home to Frimley Park Hospital in the coming months, and then finally home to us.

And so to Charlotte

We went to see Charlotte in the NICU for the first time on Monday 16th July, and it was so emotional. She was so small. At just 1lb 9oz she was too small. It was almost too much to take in. We had never seen a baby so small. Her skin was transparent and her skin looked liked that of a little old lady, all wrinkled and skinny. We could see her ribcage; she had no fat on her body. I remember thinking that her arms and legs reminded me of a Barbie doll.

But with all these feelings going on, one thing that we both felt was so much love for this tiny little baby. In a moment, we had forgotten the pain of the previous 72 hours. She was beautiful. She was doing well.

We had been warned however that little newborns went through a “honeymoon” phase soon after birth. Charlotte was certainly having this phase. During the first week she fell to her lowest weight of 1lb 5oz. But still they said this was to be expected. However, she was off the ventilator within a couple of days and onto CPAP and almost breathing air without the aid of extra oxygen supply. Doctors had detected that a heart valve, which should have closed at birth, was still open. They said that this was common and that she could be put on medicine for it to be closed.

We grew quietly confident during that first week that our little girl would defy the odds and be absolutely fine and have no problems or issues.