WHEN Laura and Ryan Johnstone discovered she was pregnant, shortly after their honeymoon, the couple were over the moon. Despite suffering with extreme morning sickness, nothing could prepare the couple for their 20-week scan, and a complication that caused their worlds to come crashing down. While waiting to find out the gender of their unborn baby, the couple were told a cyst had been found on the umbilical cord.
The growth, which would grow to the size of a grapefruit, meant their baby girl was given just 23 per cent chance of surviving. When Amelia was born eight weeks early and weighing just 3lb in May 2023, Laura feared the worst - and refused to name her baby girl for three weeks, instead referring to her as ‘baba’. Laura, now 42, from Worthing , West Sussex , said: "I feel as though I’ve lived every parents’ worst nightmare.
"From being told my baby might not survive, to seeing her struggle and be born weighing a tiny 3lbs - it’s certainly taken its toll on my and Ryan’s mental health. "Amelia has just celebrated her first birthday - she’s crawling, babbling and is a social butterfly. "She loves being read books and playing with her soft toys.
And Ryan and I are beyond excited to see her grow. "That experience did affect us both, though. We’re different people because of it.
"And we definitely don’t want to go through it again - so much so that we’ve decided we don’t want to have any more children." Laura, a podiatrist, and Ryan, 38, who works in.