EVERY mother thinks their child is special but Catherine Gwynne's daughter really is one in a million.
McKenzie Grace was still in the womb when she had to undergo life-saving blood transfusions after doctors discovered Catherine's body was rejecting her own child.
Twice the transfusions caused McKenzie's heart to stop and it had to be restarted with an injection of drugs.
But it is now a year since McKenzie was born, and she is happy and healthy and living with her family in Stewart Street, Cwm. "She is a little madam and just so determined," says her mother, who also has a 13-year-old daughter, Zoe.
McKenzie has no lasting effects from her extraordinary beginning, although her premature birth, at 30 months on December 6, 2004, at the Royal Gwent Hospital and weighing just 3lbs 5oz, left her with slight asthma.
"Her chest was weak but she gets stronger every day and doctors say she will be completely normal by the time she is two," her mother says proudly.
McKenzie is all the more precious because Catherine and her partner Ian, lost two babies, Jack and Ethan, to the same condition. "I still think about them every day and we visit their graves," says Catherine. "Jack would have been two on New Year's Eve."
But Catherine knows that without them, McKenzie would have suffered the same fate. "I believe those boys came here for a reason. They needed to show doctors what was wrong."
Catherine has a rare condition - neo-natal alloimmune thrombocytopaenia - which meant her antibodies were destroying her babies' platelets. The disorder does not usually show up until at least 25 weeks into pregnancy but Catherine's antibodies were attacking much earlier.
A specialist medical team at the St Thomas Foetal Medical Centre in Bristol gave McKenzie blood transfusions through her umbilical cord every seven to ten days.
"I look at her and I just can't believe what she went through. We can't imagine life without her now. But we won't be having any more," said Catherine.
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