Mum's impossible choice: IT'S YOU OR YOUR BABIES

Facing an agonising decision, Kylie's motherly instincts kicked in

-  JASMINE KAZLAUSKAS

Kylie Szafranski, 30

I'll be back later, darling,' my husband, Phil, 41, said.

Leaning over the hospital bed, he put his hand on my pregnant belly.

"Take care of our babies,' he smiled.

I Phil had to go home and take care of our older daughter River, then three.

At 25 weeks pregnant with quadruplets, I was a hospital inpatient.

It wasn't anything serious, just a routine infusion of magnesium, a normal procedure for mums expecting multiples.

I had to be hooked up to my drip for 48 hours straight. When it was all done, I had a shower and went to sleep.

In the middle of the night, a nurse came to check on me.

'Your oxygen levels are far too low,' he said, his voice heavy with concern. 'You need to have scans done straight away.'

Exhausted and confused, the next I knew I was inside a huge CAT scan machine.

'It won't be long,' the doctor reassured me.

I felt like I couldn't breathe.

Please be okay, I thought, rubbing my belly.

When it was finished, I was wheeled back to my room.

'We're just going to keep an eye on you,' my nurse told me.

But her words sounded warped to my ears and everything was starting to fade to black.

The world was spinning around me as I fell in and out of consciousness, losing all sense of time and reality.

Suddenly, I woke to see a medical team standing around me.

What's going on? I panicked.

'Kylie, you've just had a pulmonary embolism, which is a blood clot in the lungs,' the doctor explained.

I was terrified.