Just giving

For Mia’s first birthday me and Rob wanted to raise money for BLISS whos aim is to give every baby born premature or sick in the UK the best chance of survival and quality of life.

I want to take you all back to when it all started and share with you the fight and strength Mia has shown and the hurdles she has overcome.

When Mia was born she weighed just 570g which is 1lbs 4oz and was just 9.5 inch long. We did not know if she was alive for over 10minutes as no one would tell us anything. I still remember the face of the neonatal nurse who turned around and said she’s alive, she’s fighting us and We honestly couldn’t believe our little girl had over come her first hurdle.

People always say that having a baby is the most magical experience and how when you first see your baby it’s a rush of feelings like no other yet that wasn’t the case for me and rob as we knew the chance of Mia surving was not great. We where shown our little girl in a plastic bag with a breathing tube down her throat. We got to spend just a couple of minutes with her before she was rushed off in an incubator to intensive care.

Mia had such a fight on her hands after been born so early but on top of this she got severe chemical burns from the cleaning solution down both her sides and at the lower part of her stomach which resulted in treatment from tissue viability and plastic surgeons. She developed pusudamonus on the burns which later traveled up to her eye which has resulted in complete loss of sight in her right eye and countless surgery’s to try and save it.

Mia was Diagnosed with chronic lung disease and was on a ventilator for the first 3 weeks of her life. she was Diagnosed with suspected NEC and sepsis multiple times and She was Born with a large PDA (duct in her heart). she has had X3 brain and head scans as her first one showed something abnormal, X3 heart scans, A Hip scan and X2 stomach scans which showed internal bleeding. She had Severe anaemia which resulted in around 20 blood transfusions and She developed a Corneal abscess which has resulted in her having x6 surgeries on her right eye including a corneal transplant which she is the first baby in the world to have this done at her age. She has had x2 contrast through her large intestine which can take up to 100 X-rays per contrast and she has had over 50 individual X-rays. She has had X3 bowel surgeries first to form a stoma, the second due to a prolapse and the 3rd to reverse the stoma. She has had a 4cm ovarian cyst which was surgically removed which caused her ovary to fold over on its self due to the weight/ size. She was Treated several times for sepsis and infections and Suspected and treated for Pneumonia and Meningitis. She has had Blood in her lungs and stomach, and she developed an umbilical hernia. She has overcame a Morphine overdose of 10 times too much and then multiple episodes of withdrawals. She has had phototherapy to treat jaundice and also overcome Hyperthermia.

Mia spent 130 days in hospital which included 14 weeks in intestine care and the remainder of the time on the surgical ward in Newcastle before been discharged home. Mia has had many hospital re admissions due to stoma prolapses, bronchitis, chocking and further surgeries since coming home.

The road ahead is going to be long as we don’t no what our future looks like or what other hurdles Mia will have to face but what we do no is that Mia is a fighter and is incredibly strong and we will all be behind her every step of the way. She has touched everyone’s hearts and has one hell of a fan club.

So please if you could make any donations no mater how small to BLISS we would greatly appreciate it so that all babies born sick or premature have the best chance of survival and so more research can be carried out to help more babies. I’m sure everyone agrees that every baby deserves a chance and every mummy and daddy deserve to take their baby home.

I will be forever grateful to everyone who was involved in Mias journey and who made mia more then just a memory 💖