In memory of our beautifull little angel Euan. Theses are our beautifull little twins Euan and Ali and this is their story.

On the 14th sept last year Ali and her brother Euan were born, big, strong (6lb 13oz, 7lb 6oz) healthly and absolutely beautifull. But little did we know what the next four days had in store and how they would change our lives for ever. Leaving that labour ward on a bed with Ali under one arm and Euan under the other was the best memory of them both together and one that I will treasure for the rest of my life. Three hours after birth it was discovered that Euan had an infection, treatable.. yes thats what we thought. Euan was monitored that night and was given back to me the following morning, he had a little tube attatched to his arm (as you can see from the picture) which we were told would be used over the next 48hrs to administor his antibiotic. I can remember the following day (wed) he was not himself and each time I questioned this and repeatibly reported it to the nurses on call I was looked at like a paranoid mother, but it didnt put me off I complaned that whole day... his bad colour...his tempature...his grunting.. but no one listened. On thursday morning his milk intake was almost non existant, so I complained again and at 10.45 someone listened and on accessing Euan said he needs reffered to the royal childrens unit (we went to neonatal to wave goodbye and that was the last time I saw my little angels eyes open).  We got signed out and followed the ambulance with my little baby to the royal. We stayed there the whole day with him, in an incubator. It was so hard leaving him there that night, this was not how we imagined it should be, Ali and Euan were seperated for the 1st time and were never to be together again. We left first thing the following morning we were both exausted, and with his clothes and car seat, we thought we were going to collect our baby and take him home to meet his family. This was when the nightmare really began, when we arrived he was still in the incubator with a tube that was'nt there the night before, and I knew then that Euan was in real trouble. We were told "Euan has detereorated over night and we are sending him to intensive care" I cant explain what thoses words do to you but it is something that I hope each person reading this never have to experience. We were told it would take an hour to settle Euan in to icu and that they would call us. Almost 4hrs we waited and nothing could have prepared us for what we were about to see. Tubes, tubes and more tubes, my poor little baby. As parents any one reading this will under stand when their baby has a cold or is sick you wish you could take their pain, just to make them feel better... I would have easily gave all my limbs to have eased Euans pain . The doctors still were not sure what was causing Euans infection and he continued to deteriorate, more tubes were put into him all day on friday, morphine was given to help him with the pain, and an incision was made into his stomic which by this stage was now swollen and it was hoped this would help drain some of the fluid to ease this swelling this was  now a living nightmare one that we were never to wake up from. At 12.20 on friday night Euan went into surgery,  an hour before we had him christened as we were told that he may not have the reserves to make it through, three hours later our little angel returned.. alive, we spent thoses three hours praying that he would come back, and he did. We were told by the doctors that Euans infection had caused alot of damage that his bowel had perforated and alot of damage had been done to his other organs close to this but we were still given hope. Euans heart rate was so high as he was fighting so hard and each time we spoke to him you could see on the monitor his beats would increase, he knew we were there, but this was not helping so we had to stop. On saturday Euans little body couldnt fight anymore and at 9 oclock on sat night we were told that we had to let him go. We requested that all tubes were taken away so we could hold him in our arms. We did and within 30 seconds he was gone....now asleep forever.

I promised him that night that mummy would talk to him every day for the rest of my life.. I have and I always will.  We, for the first time got to bath Euan and for the final time we dressed him in the clothes we had taken with us two days before to take him home, and we did, we took our little angel home the following morning but not in his car seat like we had hoped. We had him at home with us for one day and on the monday morning we said our goodbyes and we laid him to rest....

To our little Angel mummy and daddy will always love you xxx

After a meeting with a consutant paediatrician in february, who was so helpfull, he is now in the process of creating a guideline for the managment of vomiting in newborn babies and this will soon be introduced onto the postnatal ward to improve the system of identification and assessment of newborn babies with significant vomiting. This is a positive move foward, but theres so much that can still be done.

Euans death was preventable and that is the hardest thing to deal with, so please give to this charity and help prevent it happening to others.

So please dig deep and donate now.