An Edinburgh baby was given just a four per cent chance of survival after being born prematurely at 27 weeks.
Alesha Dickson's mum Dionne, 35, shared the "horrific" experience of watching her little girl fight for her life as she spent five months in hospital.
Now 12-years-old and a happy and healthy teenager, Dionne and Alesha are both fundraising for Simpsons Special Care Babies unit in Edinburgh in a bid to give back to the people that saved her life.
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Pregnant with her first child in 2009, Dionne had suffered badly from morning sickness and preclampsyia, which caused her to be taken into hospital extremely early.
With her blood pressure continuing to rise, medics made the call to give her a c-section at 27 weeks in a bid to save both her and her little girl.
Speaking to Edinburgh Live, Dionne said: "She was delivered by emergency c-section, she weighed 865 grams, she went straight to intensive care so we didn't even get to see her.
"I was taken to the ward and because of my blood pressure I couldn't even see her until the next again day. When I finally did see her I just thought how can something so small survive?
"She was fine for two weeks and then went rapidly downhill and they found out she had developed Necrotising Enter Colitis (NEC), it's a bowel disease in premature babies and then she had to go to the Sick Kids for major surgery when she was just five weeks old, and have part of her bowel removed and be left with a stoma bag.
"They then did a stoma reversal to see if they could put the bowel back together and thankfully it worked. Because she was so sick they said she only had a four per cent chance when she went into surgery, they told us that most babies don't survive NEC."
Far from what the couple had expected of what having their first child would be like, Dionne said the experience was "soul-destroying" as she spent months solely at her daughter's bedside.
With the NEC, a common condition in premature babies, giving Alesha four per cent odds of survival, the family waited anxiously for months at the Simpsons unit to see how she would progress.
Dionne added "It was really stressful and I think we just lived on adrenaline because we had to just be there.
"We always share what happened with Alesha, and we tell her that the unit was her first home
"When we were there we didn't really have a lot of support, we were told most babies in that situation don't survive and were thinking what hope have we got, and we wanted that family support."
Now almost 13 years since Alesha was born, the Edinburgh teen is now helping her mum fundraise for the special care unit, with the hope of giving back to those in need.
In September, Dionne, now a mum-of-two, will be taking on the Kiltwalk, while Alesha will be doing 2,700 steps every day to mark the 27 weeks that she was born at.
Having previously volunteered for charity BLISS, Dionne is regularly back on the unit and provides support to other parents going through similar situations.
She said: "I volunteered for BLISS and would sometimes take Alesha up with me and she was remembered by so many of the nurses as the 'wee princess in bay four', she always likes to go back and see them as they saved her life and it was her first home, so she wants to give back.
"I think its because we spent so long there with Alesha, during that I was never at home and the hospital was my home, you just cant rest when you have a baby in neonatal.
"I wouldn't want another parent to feel how we did at times, sitting at an incubator with wires, tubes, alarms going off, it was just horrific. It felt soul destroying that you couldn't do anything to help her, so everything was down to the unit and their care.
"I wanted someone to come in and ask me how I was, it would have been nice to have someone there and I'd like to give back so they can get someone like that to come round and speak to parents, even once a week."
You can donate to the family's fundraiser for Simpsons Special Care Babies here.
