On 30 December 2017 Emilia was born by emergency c-section at St. Mary's hospital and spent 42 days in the NICU there (7 in the Intensive Treatment Unit and 35 in the step down Special Care Units) before we were able to bring her home.

While we had been warned she might need to be born early due to a placental abnormality and that a stay in the NICU was a possible outcome, nothing could have prepared us for the moment at 29 weeks gestation when they said we would have to deliver her right away.

Luckily Emilia progressed really well in the NICU and we are beyond thankful that she looks to have avoided some of the more severe complications of prematurity. We were fortunate to have had time for course of steroids to mature her lungs in advance of delivery and she was able to come off oxygen support entirely after one week. Fairly quickly after that she was able to regulate her own temperature and come out of the incubator. It took a little longer for her digestive system to get up to speed but eventually she steadily  started gaining weight. Emilia was initially fed through a feeding tube as premature babies have difficulty mastering the reflexes required to suck, breathe and swallow all at the same time, but once Emilia caught on she started eating like a champ and hasn't looked back once and was discharged about 1 1/2 lbs above her birth weight at 4 lb 12 oz.

Our daughter's earliest days of life were supposed to be a time of joy and celebration and we did feel moments of great joy and certainly cherished every minute we had with her (no matter the location) but to
go days after her birth without being able to hold her and to go home without her every night were among the most painful things we have ever experienced. We found it difficult to truly celebrate (or even be congratulated) in a time of such stress and uncertainty.

We wish that no one would ever have to experience what we went through but any baby born prematurely deserves the best care available and its family the most support possible. In furtherance of that we intend to support and we hope you consider a donation to the Winnicot Foundation which supports the neonatal units at St Mary's and Queen Charlotte's hospital by raising money to fund:

• medical research to improve outcomes;
  
• specialist high-tech life saving equipment (the incubator where Emilia spent her first two weeks of life alone costs GBP 25,000);
  
• materials and equipment to make babies more comfortable such as gel pillows, cot and incubator covers, to reduce noise and light and, special baby clothes (Emilia used all of these things during their stay);
  
• support for parents including help with travel costs and hotel accommodation for families whose babies have been transferred into the units or are very sick (we were lucky to have lived only 5 minutes walk from the hospital which meant we could maximize our time spent with Emilia but many families are not so lucky having to travel significant distances each day to be with their child); 
• family rooms and nursery environment, such as reclining cotside chairs to help with skin-to-skin cuddles and breastfeeding, and refurbishment of the parent bedrooms and sitting room (we estimate that we collectively logged 800 hours in the cotside chairs and the final week before Emilia came home the three of us stayed in one of the transitional bedrooms on the ward);
• staff training: helping to increase skill levels in the neonatal unit (we were consistently impressed withe levels of expertise of the staff, in particular among the senior nursing staff); and
  
• books and information, bereavement support, a hardship fund and parent support groups