Justine Todd & John Donaldson, Norton

Kyle was born on the 21st April 2014 3 days overdue he wasn’t breathing had a bleed on the brain encephalopathy grade 3 severe sepsis and something wrong with his arteries he was born at 3.25am and taken straight onto the neonatal ward I wasn’t allowed to see him till 2.00 that afternoon as they were wiring him up to all his machines and settling him in he had 3 seizures within the first 12 hours of being on the neonatal ward. For the first 5 days he was asleep and wasn’t fed anything only given 14 different medications each day he improved little by little when he was 7 days old they took him off all his machines but he still needed to be in the incubator and I got my first cuddle it was the best thing ever on day 8 he was given his first bottle and put into a proper cot and was put in with me as I had been given a room on the ward to stay in as I didn’t want to go home and leave my poorly baby by himself we were discharged on the 1st May when Kyle was 10 days old but still had physiotherapists coming to see us every 2 weeks that stopped in December 2014 as he was doing really well he is now nearly 18 months old and is an amazing happy little boy that you wouldn’t know had gone through all this. Me and John owe our lives to the amazing staff at North Tees neonatal unit for the amazing care they gave to Kyle while he was in there and the emotional support they gave us we will forever be thankful to them for saving our son.