Story of two little miracles Kimberly Livingstone with her daughter Grace, 5 months old. Picture: Kristi Miller Source: The Sunday Telegraph THREE years ago, Kimberley Livingstone did not think she would survive to fulfil her dream of becoming a mum. The 31-year-old from Kirrawee, in Sydney's south, was suffering lung failure as a result of cystic fibrosis and almost lost hope after spending 13 months on the organ transplant list. "When we got to 12 months, I said, 'I can't do this anymore,"' Ms Livingstone said. I tried to always have hope, but many a time, I would think I can't fight anymore. A few weeks later, the hospital informing her they had a potential organ donor. "I had tears streaming down my face, I was so overwhelmed," she said. The next day, she had a double lung transplant and, before long, had returned to work as an intensive care nurse. But what she wanted most was to be a mother. The problem was, few female cystic fibrosis patients of child-bearing age at St Vincent's Hospital, the only lung transplant unit in the state, have had pregnancies. And, among transplant patients, research shows only one in three pregnancies will come to term or result in a live birth. At 28 weeks, Mrs Livingstone developed pre-eclampsia and Grace had to be delivered 11 weeks early, weighing 930g. She spent more than 10 weeks on oxygen in hospital intensive care units, as Ms Livingstone sat by her crib. "That was worse than waiting for a transplant," she said. Sitting there by the crib of this little thing you didn't know, but you carried for 29 weeks - I just didn't know what to do. Thankfully, Grace pulled through and is now a healthy, happy four-month-old. She's our little fighter, our miracle bub. She's our amazing Grace now. I want to make sure I say how grateful I am to my donor. If they didn't save me, we wouldn't be here now. Ms Livingstone is urging people to talk to their families about their wishes regarding organ donation ahead of DonateLife Week, which starts today. St Vincent's Hospital's director of thoracic medicine, Professor Allan Glanville, said Ms Livingstone would have died within as little as three months if she had not received the transplant when she did. "The majority of people we transplant with cystic fibrosis are very much looking at a grim outcome - that is that they will die without a transplant within a short period of time," he said. This is what transplant does - it gives people the ability to hope.