We called Max our miracle baby because we had been trying for so long to get pregnant. The pregnancy was fine and Max was born in January 2001. We couldn't believe how lucky we were!

He wouldn't feed but I was assured that this was quite normal. On day three a doctor checked him and discovered a problem. Max had a severe hypoplastic left heart and died when he was eight days old. Our lives just fell apart.

I returned to work four weeks later because I felt depressed sitting at home on my own. I worked in a shop and every customer would ask why I was back at work so soon. In the end I had to stop work because it was too upsetting.

I hated seeing pregnant women or women with babies. I was so jealous and so angry. We started to try for another baby straight away. Each month I would get so excited and then so depressed when I started my period. Everybody I knew seemed to be pregnant. Life was just so unfair.

Then in August I became pregnant. I was so happy for five minutes, but then worried that it might all happen again. We have a 1 in 20 chance of any future baby having a heart problem. At seven weeks I started to bleed and thought I was having a miscarriage. Every one or two weeks I would bleed, and panic that I was losing the baby.

As the due date approached I was getting paranoid that the baby would die. The doctor agreed to let me have an elective section and baby Isabelle was born alive and healthy in April this year.

We think of Max every day and feel so lucky that Isabelle is with us.

Lucy