LIVER transplant baby Lennox Nicholson could arrive home from hospital this evening.

A decision about whether the six-month-old is strong enough to be discharged will be made by doctors at teatime.

Doctors are said to be amazed at the baby's recovery weeks after he underwent the life-saving operation.

Lennox could be home in Guisborough, east Cleveland, tonight.

A family friend said last night: "It's amazing, when he was so poorly. We are more or less waiting to hear if he can come home.

"If he does come home it will be after the teatime ward round.

"He has done really well. He has put on weight, he is thriving and he has amazed the doctors."

Parents Simon Nicholson, 21, and Amy Robinson, 20, had been warned that if a new liver could not be found, Lennox would die on Christmas Eve.

Lennox was born with an incurable bile duct condition, but he was given a chance of life when a donor liver became available.

The liver, which came from an adult, gave Lennox and an unnamed woman the chance of life with separate transplant operations.

The ten-hour operation involved three teams of surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses and technicians. One team divided the donated liver to provide two viable organs while the other teams transplanted the donated tissue into Lennox and the unnamed woman.

Lennox' parents have been by his cotside in the children's ward at St James's University Hospital, in Leeds, throughout Christmas and the New Year.

"They have had the best present they could have got," said the family friend, who said the baby's parents were over the moon.

The friend added: "There is the possibility he will be coming home and we are just keeping fingers crossed.

"We thought he would be in hospital a lot longer."

Lennox was born at Middlesbrough's James Cook University Hospital on June 21 and within weeks he showed signs of severe jaundice and acute liver problems.

A nationwide search was launched for a donor liver when doctors broke the news to Amy and Simon that their baby would die without a transplant.

The couple appealed for more people to join the national organ donor register in an attempt to make a transplant more likely.

There are 12.8 million people on the national organ donor register and UK Transplant is hoping to reach 13 million soon.

To register as a donor call 0845 606 0400.