My little boy Samuel was born suddenly at 23 weeks and weighed 1lb 4oz.

He seemed to be doing really well for the first 2 days and then he had a bleed on the brain and his lung collapsed at the same time. He recovered from it quite quickly however we were told he had a PDA which would 1st be treated with medication (which didn't work).

At just under 2 weeks old and weighing 1lb 6oz Samuels tummy turned blue and he got rushed to another hospital for urgent surgery. We were taken into a room and told to prepare for the worst as he was so small and having massive surgery. The wait to find out whether he survived or not still haunts me and by some miracle he survived, When we went to go see him for the first time his little body was all swollen and two of his fingers and thumb had turned black where he had an arterial line the blood supply didn't manage to get to those fingers and thumb. To be honest his fingers weren't something I worried about as I was so thankful he was alive.

As the next few weeks went on Samuel had a PDA operation and his stoma was causing problems, the stoma didn't protrude enough and therefore a bag didn't work so his poo would lay on his belly which caused his wound to break down, the plan was to wait until he put enough weight on to reverse the stoma. A date was all set for his surgery and the day before I was so scared, we went into the unit and found that he was having his eyes tested and told he has stage 3 ROP and if he didn't have laser surgery within the next 24 hrs he'd go blind. So my poor little boy the next day underwent 2 surgery's in one go as it was decided it wasn't in his interest to delay his stoma surgery.

About 5 weeks after this he was discharged and came home on Oxygen. His fingers are all attached he only lost the very tips and he is now a very happy, healthy little 3 year old.