Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

My name is Emilie. At the age of 19 I became pregnant. My son died in utero then my daughter did too less than a year later. Following a postmortem of my daughter and tests on myself and husband I was diagnosed at St. Albans City Hospital by Dr. Yunus Tayob with a blood condition called Antiphospholipid Syndrome or Hughes Syndrome. I was only 20 years old and this meant that i would now need to inject blood thinner, take blood thinner in tablet form and also insert hormones throughout my entire pregnancy. To inject my bump everyday was so unnatural to me. But, now faced with the prospect of never being a mum i was forced to decided what i really wanted .... I would do anything to finally have a baby... 

After a lot of traumas, changes in hospitals and consultants. My doctors at Barnet Hospital Mrs. Pradnya Pisal and Mr. Adam Rodin jointly delivered my son Kai in 2012. He was born alive! A dream that felt beyond reach. However he was born at just 27 weeks gestation weighing 2.2lbs. My dream of having a live birth had come true. The dream of being able to take my baby boy home was very far away as his life hung in the balance. 8 weeks later I left Barnet General hospital WITH my little boy weighing 4lb 2oz. He had fought off sepsis and other such infections and left with ongoing chronic lung disease, leaking kidneys and an artery defect ..... but he is alive!

At the birth of my son it was also found that I had a unicornuate uterus with a rudimentary horn but 2 connected and working fallopian tubes. This is very rare. It turns out that I shouldn't even be able to get pregnant let alone have any babies. The prognosis for ever having another baby born alive wasn't great and I was advised not to become pregnant again.

However in March 2014 having just turned 24 and 22 months after the birth of my son, having been looked after, again, by Dr. Adam Rodin and Registrar Dr. Charlotte Casis my daughter Mia followed. This birth was the scariest time. I thought we would both die from the sheer pain i was in. She was delivered in a flash after a suspected placental abruption. She was just 28 weeks gestation and only 2.8lbs. Like her brother, her life hung in the balance. She fought off sepsis, necrotizing enterocolitis twice, had a grade 1 right side brain bleed and a grade 2 left side brain bleed and has an ASD hole in her heart. Against all odds - after just 6 weeks and 6 days weighing a tiny 3lb 5oz she left the neo natal unit with me, her brother and Granny (as, during all this, I became a single mother, my marriage could not withstand the difficult times of the last 5 years)  

My journey to motherhood would not have been possible had it not been for the fantastic antenatal care and the wonderful, amazing doctors, nurses and therapists that work on the Starlight Neonatal Unit, all based at Barnet General Hospital. 

In 2009 the National Institute of Care Excellence (NICE) concluded that: The national average daily unit cost for special care is £476, high-dependency care is £759 and intensive care is £1081. This means my children have cost the NHS around £50,000 each just from their neonatal unit stays. Not including subsequent follow ups, admissions and tests, my tests, my weekly antenatal appointments and scans, countless stays in hospital and 2 cesarean births.

This was never meant to be my story - having a premature baby, a sick baby or a baby born too soon is never the plan. Please help me to help these angel doctors and nurses continue this life changing, saving care during hard times for the NHS - how lucky we are to have the NHS.

Find us at Facebook.com/kaiandmiasstory

Text EEEE60 plus an amount eg. £5 or £10 to 70070

Macksjustgiving@gmail.com

Our Educational Video: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkcvh3hTNY