A mum who who was told her baby girl would not survive six hours after being born is now celebrating her daughter's first birthday.
Sonia McKessick began thinking of funeral plans after doctors said her newborn baby would have just hours to live.
But, one year on, little Florrie McKessick is at home in Ballymoney, Northern Ireland with her family and celebrating turning one.
Florrie weighed 5lb 2ozs and was seven weeks early when she was born on March 12 2019, but despite her healthy weight for a premature baby she became very sick.
"Everything was normal until our 20 week scan, but they seen a brightness in Florrie's lung which they thought could be fluid or a computer error," Sonia told Belfast Live.
"We were told not to panic because they seen this quite regularly and we were sent us to the Royal in December 2018 to see Dr Ong, and he couldn't see anything at all so we thought that was grand, and came back in 4-5 weeks at the Doctor's request.
"When we went back, we were really hopeful, but as soon as the scanner was on my tummy it was as clear as day and we seen this brightness had got a lot bigger. From then our world turned upside down.
"They were treating it as a CPAM at the start so they gave us all the information on that and closely monitored me. So all my care was then transferred to the Royal Victoria Hospital.
"I was up and down to Dr Ong and his team throughout January and February and on the 27 February they said that I had to be in bed rest. I was carrying so much extra fluid and literally waddling at only 27 weeks. I was monitored on a day to day basis.
"I had great care from the whole team and I cannot thank Dr Ong and his team enough because it was him that asked for me to come back in a couple of weeks."
Florrie was born on March 12, 2019, but things took a turn for the worst - and she was given a very small chance of survival.
"When my husband came down from seeing Florrie in the Neonatal Ward, I knew something was wrong," Sonia added.
"My husband just shook his head and said that Dr Millar said we had 4-6 hours with Florrie. We were in Belfast and our family were in Ballymoney and this new broke at about 4pm so I didn't think they'd make it in time to meet her with rush hour traffic - I was panicking.
"Thankfully they did make it and she was baptised that night with her family around her - but then things turned from there and she made it for surgery on April 3.
"They don't actually know what is wrong with Florrie, there's been no answers yet. We are waiting on results coming back from Great Ormond Street.
"We are one year on and the words I remember the doctor saying to me that night were 'I am giving your daughter 4-6 hours to live, but I hope you can come back and see us on her first birthday' and now we are.
"Everything was running through my head that night. I was just after having an emergency c-section and was thinking about how I would plan her funeral. It was really tough but we are in a week of celebrations for our little miracle baby who has just turned one.
"My husband is involved in a local football team and each year they're involved in a charity pub crawl at Christmas, and this year they very kindly raised funds for the Neonatal Unit in Florrie's name. And we plan to donate this soon, because it is her first birthday.
"And we said that 2020 is our year to do something for them and give back so we have started fundraising efforts just as a way to say thank you to a great team of people. "
To donate to the 'Thank You for Florrie' fundraiser CLICK HERE .
