DIARY OF A BIRTH: Charlotte was 27 weeks pregnant when a trip to the bathroom started a terrifying ordeal.

Charlotte and Sam loved their lives before parenthood.

The couple enjoyed their Sunshine Coast hinterland home with their beautiful border collie, Marlo. And for a while, that was enough.

But last year, their hearts yearned for something more — it was time to grow their family.

Charlotte's pregnancy journey began smoothly, each week bringing fresh excitement.

"I started to get quite excited for labour… I couldn't wait to be a part of this club," Charlotte told Mamamia's Diary of a Birth podcast.

But at 23 weeks, their world tilted on its axis.

"I woke up to what felt like my period, and just saw quite a bit of blood, and I just freaked out… I just had this scream that I've never had before, and he panicked," she said.

Listen to Charlotte's premature birth experience on Mamamia's Diary of a Birth podcast. Post continues below.

With her nurse's training haunting every thought, Charlotte's mind spiralled through the worst possibilities.

"No one had told me that you can have bleeding without having a miscarriage," she said.

"I knew at 22 weeks if I was going to have to deliver, that would be a stillborn, and so my mind just immediately went there."

In those terrifying moments, Charlotte and Sam raced to hospital, their hearts pounding until they received the news their precious baby was safe.

But fate wasn't finished with them.

At 27 weeks, what Charlotte thought was merely Braxton Hicks contractions was "the start of something much bigger."

Sam and Charlotte with baby Koa. Image: Supplied.

"It's too soon."

The next day brought the moment that would change everything. At work, Charlotte experienced what she thought was incontinence.

"I had discharge that felt like clear fluid, like it felt like I'd wet my pants a little bit," she said.

Her midwife's question — "Do you think it could be your waters?" — sparked a fear she'd never known.

"I'm only 27 weeks and three days. I'm lost for words," she recalled.

Charlotte went to the maternity ward for an internal exam and ultrasound.

Two hours after the initial discharge, she went to the bathroom to give a urine sample.

Reality hit hard.

"As I pulled my pants down, the rest of the waters just gushed down... I just started bawling my eyes out and started to get a bit panicky," she said.

"It's too soon. He's not big enough," she thought.

Everything moved at lightning speed. Their baby was breech, requiring an emergency caesarean. Worse still, their local hospital couldn't care for babies under 29 weeks — they needed to get to Brisbane.

"The doctor was quite concerned. He was worried that I wasn't going to make it to Brisbane in time," she said. "The poor paramedics... their faces just went white."

In Brisbane, doctors prepared them for what lay ahead. Their tiny son would be rushed to the NICU immediately. They detailed every possibility: brain bleeds, lung problems, vision issues, cerebral palsy. It was overwhelming, but Charlotte and Sam chose to take it moment by moment.

Charlotte says they were still able to appreciate Koa's first moments, despite being in hospital. Image: Supplied.

When the time finally came, it was "surreal".

"Sam came and sat next to me, and then they started the procedure. Koa came out," Charlotte recalled.

"Initially, it was quiet, they pulled him out, and then there was a laugh. And I was like, That's odd. And then everyone started laughing, and Koa had peed on me."

Everything fell into place when she finally got to look into Koa's eyes.

"He looked at me, and he made a little cry as they faced him to me, and it was just so beautiful. It was just like the perfect meeting, knowing that I couldn't touch him, but at least he cried out, and he knew that it was me."

Charlotte initially imagined her moments after birth filled with skin-on-skin time with little Koa. Instead, he was rushed to the NICU in a fight for his life.

"I'd gone from this room full of people to absolutely no one, essentially. And it was really weird. I felt so alone," she said.

In the NICU, Charlotte and Sam's world shrank to the size of their son's little fingers, which couldn't even wrap around their own.

"They were so tiny. He was so warm," Charlotte recalled.

Little Koa was rushed to the NICU after birth. Image: Supplied.

Navigating the NICU.

Mamamia's in-house expert, Dr Daniel Golshevsky said with NICU babies, small mistakes or fluctuations can be the difference between life and death.

"Babies don't have any immune protection," the Melbourne-based paediatrician tells Diary of a Birth.

"This is a baby that's been born weeks before they were expecting to be and they were intended to be. And so we are asking of them an extraordinary amount.

"We're asking them to use their lungs weeks before they were meant to be used. We're asking them to use their gut to feed, to get sugar and to get sustenance and to grow weeks before it was meant to be used, their protective systems to fight infection, all of these things, and they're not ready."

Baby Koa now. Image: Supplied.

Today, Koa is thriving at five months corrected age (eight months actual). While their NICU journey was "heart-wrenching, tough but beautiful," it taught Charlotte a powerful lesson.

"Don't worry until there's something to worry about, because otherwise you're worrying twice, and you're missing out on those first beautiful moments with your baby.

"Even though they're not at home with you, they're still beautiful moments in the NICU."

Even still, "it's a journey that I wouldn't wish upon anyone", she said.

For more stories from Diary of a Birth click here.

Feature image: Supplied.