Mum Josie Hall (21) said the past few months have gone by in a blur as her baby battled for survival.

But now he’s finally left hospital and she and her partner, also Leno Sardella, are looking forward to Christmas at home with their son.

“It is going to be the best Christmas ever,” said Josie. “It is just going to make my Christmas him being home. It puts an end to going up to the hospital every day and all the stress of not knowing what is going to happen next.

“We know that is all in the past now, and we just need to look forward to the future. It’s great.”

Baby Leno weighed just two pounds (905 grams) when he arrived two minutes before midnight on May 5. His mum was “in shock” at giving birth so far ahead of her due date.

Immediately after the baby was born, medical staff said, “He’s alive” before whisking him away to be hooked up to a machine to take over breathing for the infant’s immature lungs. The young parents just burst in to tears, with no idea of the long road ahead for their tiny son.

“He had a head full of black hair but he didn’t look like a baby,” said Josie. “His eyes were sealed shut and his skin was translucent. You could see right through him.

“The first months after he was born are a complete blur. I was still in shock. It was surreal.”

Her small son, as is common with very premature babies, picked up infections, and a blood infection made him swell up.

Josie and her partner prepared themselves for the worst after staff in the neonatal unit at Ninewells said he might not make it. But the couple’s bonnie wee fechter pulled through that episode only to be sent through to Glasgow for an operation to close a duct in his heart. At the same time he had corrective surgery on his eyes.

Following a period of recovery at the sick children’s hospital, in Glasgow, little Leno was well enough to be transported back to Ninewells. But just as the wee lad was making progress and had moved out of intensive care and in to special care at Ninewells’ neonatal unit, he suffered collapsed lungs.

“They had to paralyse him with drugs so his body would rest, and the ventilator did all the breathing for him so his lungs would heal,” said Josie. The family went back to Glasgow, and stayed for a month, while doctors there released pressure on Leno’s lungs and performed another operation to fix two hernias.

“When he was well enough to be transported, he was brought back to Dundee and has done nothing but put on weight ever since,” said Josie, whose son now weighs 12 pounds.

“He is my little fighter,” said Josie. “He has been through such a lot but he is like a normal baby now, although he still needs help to breath and I am having to learn to manage taking him out in his pram with a heavy oxygen cylinder.”

As the proud parents prepared to celebrate Christmas, Josie took time to pay tribute to the medical teams who cared for the whole family.

“If it wasn’t for the staff at Ninewells, Leno would not be here,” said Josie. “We are eternally grateful for all their efforts over the last few months. It isn’t just me and the baby they have supported, but my partner and both our families.”