Teenager inspired by care when she was premature baby

WHEN Alix Kivlin was born she was barely bigger than her mother's hand.

Weighing just 2.5lbs, she had been born three months prematurely and left fighting for life.

But despite such a shaky start, the feisty teenager is now gearing up for her 18th birthday in perfect health, and says she owes it all to the incredible medical team who saved her – so much so, she is even thinking of becoming a nurse, inspired by the staff of the Simpson Maternity Pavilion.

Mum Lynsay, now 47, was 27 weeks pregnant and at a routine check-up when medics realised they couldn't hear her baby's heartbeat and rushed her into surgery for a Caesarian.

Baby Alix was put straight on a ventilator, and a day later her mum was taken in to see her. Lynsay said: "She was a wee scrap, with lots of wires and a wee hat on, but she was lovely.

"They said she was very ill and they advised us to have her baptised in intensive care. I think up until that point I didn't realise how serious she was, but then I knew they didn't do that 'just because'. I was just a mess."

They got her baptised, and Alix kept fighting. Lynsay said: "She just hung on in there. I'm not a particularly religious person, but at that time I did a lot of praying and something or someone must have heard me."

At the age of three months, weighing 7lb, Alix finally came home. She needed speech therapy and physiotherapy, but around the age of 11 threw off the splint that had helped her to walk and continued life like any other child.

Now looking forward to her milestone birthday on 4 August, the modest teenager turned down her mum's offer of a party because she doesn't like being the centre of attention, and will instead celebrate with a quiet family meal.

She said: "It doesn't really feel real, they're always like, 'you don't realise how small you were,' and I'm obviously never going to know, they always say 'you're like a wee miracle,' and I don't really see it."

Even the physiotherapy just seemed like fun at the time, she said: "I actually quite enjoyed it, I got out of school quite a lot and I got on with the physio, I was just like a kid in a shop with lots of toys."

Since leaving Portobello High School, she has worked as a retail assistant at a store in Princes Street. She has a slight weakness on one side, but Lynsay, also mum to Ashley, 21 and Scott, 19, said: "She's just a typical teenager. I don't think anybody at work or many of her friends know about her shaky start in life, because she just takes it in her stride.

"I can't put it into words what I think of the staff at the Simpson's, considering what could have been. She might never have walked, or talked, and she could have been mentally challenged or blind, or deaf – and there's absolutely nothing."

And Alix agrees – she is now considering returning to education to become a nurse, partly inspired by the Simpsons staff who made so much difference to her: "They're cracking, just absolutely amazing. I'm now thinking about going to do nursing and that's definitely part of it, to give something back, after what they did for me, and also my mum."