Mum who nearly bled to death after going into labour at just 25 WEEKS is overjoyed as ‘miracle baby’ defies all odds to celebrate tenth birthday
Lucy Nixon needed major heart surgery at just four weeks old, following a premature labour horror that nearly cost mum Paula her life
A MUM who nearly bled to death in a traumatic premature labour has shared her joy as her "miracle baby" turns ten.
Bravely reliving her emergency cesarean horror, Paula Nixon, 41, said giving birth at around 25 weeks was terrifying, following a pregnancy "like something out of The Exorcist";.
The youngest baby to have ever survived a premature birth was born at just 21 weeks in the US.
Doctors told Paula, a social care worker, that if she was unable to deliver her baby within an hour, she would likely bleed to death, with no guarantee the tiny infant would survive.
Ten years on, having had major heart surgery at just four weeks old, a happy, healthy Lucy struggles to accept the photos of the frail baby engulfed in hospital tubes was once her.
The competitive youngster - who wants to be just like her big brother - has defied all odds by celebrating her tenth birthday.
Having had a perfectly healthy pregnancy with her first baby Harry, Paula was puzzled when her second started showing warning signs early on.
She had a positive home pregnancy result in October 2006, but doctors couldn't confirm she was pregnant until two months later.
Paula, of Falkirk, said: "I'm a placid person but my hormones were raging. I was very emotional and teary - it felt like something out The Exorcist.
"The night everything happened, I noticed a trail of blood on the carpet and felt something pushing down on my stomach.
"When my husband took me to Stirling Royal I had to sit on four towels because the blood was coming so fast.
"Doctors noticed from the scan that Lucy was distressed inside and said if she wasn't delivered in an hour I would bleed to death.
"I was in so much pain, I never thought she would survive."
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After an emergency C section on March 10, Paula remembers the first moment she saw her baby, lying in an incubator.
She said: "She looked like a wee bird, she was so tiny.
"I tried not to overly bond with her, I thought I might lose her again. They didn't want us to touch her and it just didn't seem real.
"She had to have brain scans every day, and you found yourself wishing her life away, wishing she would get stronger.
"Harry definitely helped us through - when he came to see her he told her 'I'm your big brother, come home so I can play with you.'
"That made us smile. Ever since then they've been fiercely close."
After 14 long weeks of daily checks on her vital organs - and surgery to repair a heart valve at four weeks old - Lucy was admitted out of hospital.
Her first year of life was a "constant worry" for parents Paula and Allan, 40, but Lucy's difficult beginning has never held her back.
Paula said: "She's doing really well. She's very academically-minded and is great and maths and English.
"She's even quite tall for her age, for a premature baby, and at age ten is wearing size 12-13 clothes.
"When she was five I showed her pictures of herself as a baby and she cried - she saw the tubes coming out of her and said 'Who is that? That can't be me.'"
Having celebrated her tenth birthday with a group of friends at Sky High trampoline park in Falkirk, and her tenth Easter with her family, Lucy is excited to go back to school to see her friends.
Paula added: "Lucy is just so enthusiastic about life and doesn't let anything get her down.
"If Harry fell, the whole street would hear about it, but Lucy would just get up and get on with it - she's hardy like that.
"She wants to be a nurse when she grows up. We couldn’t ask for a better daughter."
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