Mia Cristofoli was born on the 20th December 2007 with her twin sister Ella 2 minutes later in Portsmouth Hospital. Mia and Ella weren’t well when they were born neither of them were able to breath by themselves, so they were on a ventilator. Over the first 24 hours Ella seemed to recover well whilst Mia seemed unsettled and cried a lot. We soon discovered Mia was having seizures as a result of lack of oxygen when she was born, Mia was given medication to control the seizures. However, this meant that Mia had to go back on the ventilator, the medication suppressed the seizures but also suppressed her breathing. After this, Mia had a number of tested including EEG’s which showed no further shows of seizures but also showed very low activity of the brain. Whilst Ella went from strength to strength each day, Mia rapidly detearerated and we were told that Mia may not survive, this was the worse news we had ever been told. We stayed with Mia and Ella every moment we could praying that Mia would get better and that we would be able to take them both home together. Over the next two/three days Mia was weaned off the medication and seemed to become very uncomfortable on the ventilator so the Consultant suggested Mia coming of the ventilator and trying periods of time on a machine called C-PAP, this meant that Mia would have to breath by herself. If Mia wasn’t able to breath by herself we were told we would have to consider turning off the machines and there would be no hope of Mia living. This was a very sad and very difficult time for us. So, we decided to leave it in Mia’s hands to see if she could do it on her own and thankfully she did. Each day the C-PAP would be turned off for short periods of time and Mia would breathe completed on her own. Gradually, this increased for longer each time until Mia was breathing totally independently. Finally on the 31st January 2008, 6 weeks after they were born, we bought them home.