11 October 2019 is a date that changed our lives forever. After a five-day mini break to New York and Boston, I was 23 weeks and 5 days’ pregnant when I boarded the plane to fly home to the UK. However, moments before take-off I suffered a placental abruption and was taken by ambulance to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

I was 28+1 weeks’ pregnant when we set off on what was to be our last getaway to a friend’s wedding in Verona, Italy. Feeling fine, we boarded the plane but once up in the air I start to bleed, so after a trip to the airport doctor and with a letter in hand we headed off to a local women’s hospital.

Our son Tommy was born at 26 weeks and weighed 1lb 15oz (879g). We were told that he was a good weight for his gestation but, to us, he was just so tiny. Tiny but so, so perfect. The experience of neonatal intensive care (NICU) is like no other and, unless you’ve been through it, you can never really understand.

It has been 140 days since I heard the words “Oh this is not good, not good at all. This baby has to come out”. It’s been 139 days since my baby was born at 29 weeks by emergency c section, weighing 2lb 2oz, having stopped growing some weeks before.

In 2011 I found out I was pregnant. It wasn’t a surprise because, like most things in my life, it was carefully planned. Working in the media there’s not a great deal of job security and I’d strategically manoeuvred myself into a permanent role after years of freelancing in order to get some paid maternity leave and – most importantly for me – a job to return to.