'You need to get to the hospital now': Courtney was told her baby had 20 minutes to live

New parents Courtney and her husband Rhys? were woken one morning by the most terrifying call of their life.

"They said you need to get to the hospital now, '?Can you be here in 20 minutes?'. I told them we lived 40 minutes away. And they said they didn't think he was going to make it."

Their son Maverick was struggling to stay alive after being born at just ?23 weeks gestation, weighing an astonishing 719 grams.

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"We rushed to the car and I told them over the phone to do whatever they needed to do to save my baby."

Fast forward 10 months later, and Maverick is now a happy little boy who's favourite thing to do is sing? and listen to music.

"He loves to have a chat and will give anyone a smile," mum Courtney Matulis gushes to 9Honey Parenting.

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Maverick, who's name is an ode to dad's obsession with Top Gun, is truly a miracle baby.

"Maverick is our second child. We lost our little girl Savannah Jane at 18 weeks and six days as a result of an incompetent cervix, which is part of the reason that he was born so early as well."

An incompetent cervix refers to the development of weak cervical tissue that plays a part in a premature birth or the loss of a healthy pregnancy.

Courtney's condition was a huge blow for the couple who had been struggling to conceive for over ?nine years and underwent IVF treatments to try to start a family.

Though after loosing their little girl, fertility doctors decided to protect the couple's second pregnancy by putting in a cervical stitch to avoid a miscarriage from happening again.

"Everything looked really good. We were going into fortnightly ultrasounds, and my cervix was quite long. Everything was great."

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Though on what was her first day of maternity leave, Courtney was out celebrating with ?a few co-workers when she experienced a heavy bleed.

"Emma said to me, 'Courtney look your feet, they're red!'. The ambulance was called and I was rushed straight to emergency."

Rhys was at a Bluey concert with his nieces, and got ?the frightening call from Courtney's friends to tell him what had happened and rushed to her side.

"The stitch failed and I was in labour. I was dilated three centimetres. The membrane for his amniotic sac had started to come through, which is what caused the bleed."

The next few hours ?were a rollercoaster of medical discussions and emergency decisions.

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"They stopped my labour six times because. Then in the early hours of a Tuesday morning at 3:00am I went into labour again and they once again tried to stop it. But by 5:00am that morning, it came in hard and fast."

Maverick was born at 23 weeks and five days ?¨C the survival rate for babies born this early is approximately 60 per cent.

"There was so much happiness around, but then at the same time so much concern and worry," dad Rhys recalls.

At just seven days old Maverick had surgery for a perforated stomach and at 16 days old his kidneys and lungs started to shut down due to late onstage sepsis.

Courtney and Rhys who had gone home for the night, were woken by multiple calls from the hospital updating them on Maverick's worrying condition.

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?"It was progressively getting worse. They called to say, 'We've had to up his oxygen percentage.' He went up to 40 per cent of the oxygen requirement, and then 50 per cent."

By the next morning Maverick was struggling so much that the medical team consulted with his parents about giving him the only thing they believed would give him a fighting chance.

"They put him on nitric gas, which is something that they don't usually give to a baby under 34 weeks. It can have many dangerous side effects such as brain damage and intellectual damage," Courtney explains.

"We weighed up the options and thought if this is going to save his life, let's do it.?"

The next 48 hours felt like they went on forever.

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"To see your baby who used to love to move, sit absolutely dead still for 48 hours was heart wrenching."

It was during that time that Courtney picked up a brochure at the hospital from Life's Little Treasures, a foundation that supports families of premature and sick babies in NICU.

"They were so great. They would take care of breakfast and we could just focus on get up all hours of the night to sit with him and read with him. It's what you need when your child is effectively fighting for his life."

And Maverick won that fight. Finally, after 184 days the little boy came home and has gone from strength to strength since.

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"He's meeting all of his developmental milestones. ?He says two words ¨C mama and hi. Mama is his favourite thing to drop when he sad though," Courtney laughs.

The parents are incredibly grateful for their strong little boy, and understand just how lucky they are to have him in their lives.

"I remember when we were in hospital, one of our nurses was going on a holiday and she said, 'I'll see you when I get back.' She went away for two weeks and when she came back, she couldn't believe we were still there."

"She has been in the NICU for many many years and for her to say that showed us just how sick he actually was."

Walk for Prems 2023 is the largest annual fundraiser by Life's Little Treasures Foundation, Australia's foremost charity dedicated to supporting the families of babies born sick or premature.

The event will take place at nine locations across Australia during the month of October. To get involved head here.

If you or someone you know has suffered pregnancy or infant loss please contact: Pink Elephants Support Network - pinkelephants.org.au, SANDS - sands.org.au, Red Nose Australia ¨C rednose.org.au