mia was born on her due date, 5th october 2006, after a problem free pregnancy and a text book labour and delivery. we had a planned home birth and everything was perfect. that is until the cord was cut and then it all started to go horribly wrong. she was struggling to breath on her own so after a few attempts at giving her oxygen and suction, the midwives rang for an ambulance to take her to hospital and get her some more help.

within minutes, one arrived with sirens blaring to take our precious little girl. that was the last time i saw her alive. steve had gone with mia in the ambulance and i had to wait for another one to come and take me to the hospital aswell. mine wasnt on a blue light so by the time i got there, after sitting in traffic, it was about 45 minutes later.

i was taken to a delivery room and along with my mum we waited for some news. when a consultant came into the room i thought he was going to tell me that mia was in the special care unit so they could keep an eye on her breathing overnight and that he would take me to see her. how wrong i was.......

after introducing himself, his next words brought my world crashing down "im very sorry but your baby has died". i just could not believe what i was hearing. he told me that steve was in the next room and that he would go and get him for me. steve came into the room crying his eyes out but i was so numb with shock i just couldnt understand what was happening. she was fine until the cord was cut. what had gone wrong?

the next six weeks passed in a blur of grief and frustration, just waiting for the results of mia's post mortem. all that was going round in our heads

24/7 was what caused her to just die like that? once the results came through it was discovered that she had caught an infection whilst still in the womb, called group b strep. in my case the infection had got into my waters while they were still intact, and infected the fluid surrounding mia.

the infection was then transferred into her body through her swallowing the amniotic fluid. when she was born she was already suffering from congenital pneumonia, caused by the group b strep. this is why she struggled as soon as the cord was cut....she had to live independantly from the placenta and because her lungs were damaged from the infection, they couldnt cope.

we were told that the infection was absolutely everywhere inside her and her brain had started to shut down quite quickly after her birth.

eight months on we still cant believe she is gone-it all seems like a bad dream. we have been told that if and when we have more children, i will be monitered more closely and will be given antibiotics during labour to prevent it happening again, which gives me a little bit of hope and comfort that we need never lose another baby.