Baby of the week: Hallglen tot Florence Chan

Mum Amanda Duffy, 34, is unemployed, while dad Luk Chan, 41, is an advisor and back office support at Sky.

Florence lives with her mum, dad and big brother Rory Chan, 2, in Hallglen. She also has a half sister Isla who is 12 and a half brother Kyle who is 14.

Mum said the pregnancy started out great aside from the occasional morning sickness. At 26 weeks she went to triage for stomach pain and was taken for emergency surgery to have an ovarian cyst and ovary removed. The procedure couldn’t be carried out keyhole as she was pregnant so she said the recovery was extremely painful and difficult. She had weekly scans and appointments from then until the end of her pregnancy as Florence was measuring small, likely due to the stress of the operation, and she was at risk for pre-term labour.

Florence was born by planned c-section, mainly to avoid any possible complications that could arise from mum having an abdominal surgery only 11 weeks prior, but Florence was also breech. Mum said the c-section went really smoothly and they couldn’t have asked for anything to be different.

When it came to her name, mum said that after what they’d been through they decided that their girl deserved a meaningful and strong name. She had suggested thinking about women throughout history who were strong or had achieved something. Dad suggested Florence after Florence Nightingale and the second mum heard it, she knew that was the perfect name for her. Her middle names were chosen by her Chinese grandparents and mean “family” and “precious”.

Mum said Florence is such a happy little soul and she lights up any room with the biggest smile with her dimples. She loves blowing raspberries, sticking her tongue out to touch her chin and playing peekaboo. Mum and dad think she’s going to be a chatterbox as she loves the sound of her own voice.

Florence’s proud grandparents are Norie and Catherine Coleman, who live in Lionthorn, and San Fook and Ying King Chan, who live in Livingston.

Mum and dad would like to thank Dr Holmes for his care, reassurance, patience and for “cracking some jokes in what was easily the most terrifying and stressful experience”. Also thanks to Dr Wilson for putting up with all their questions every week and the entire Beech team.

*If you’ve recently had a new addition to the family and would like them to feature as our baby of the week, then get in touch. Send us an email to [email protected] with your name, daytime contact number and baby’s date of birth. Please note, babies should be less than six months old at the time of entering.