World Prematurity Day – That First Cuddle

Next Thursday is World Prematurity Day and this has made me think back nearly 5 and a half years ago when as unlikely as I ever thought it would be, I became a Mum.

I hadn’t brought anything, as I couldn’t convince myself I would have a baby to bring home and tried to tell myself I didn’t buy anything as I didn’t want to jinx it. Looking back now everything from the get go pointed to yet another miscarriage, but week by week he stuck in there.

I can honestly say, that I believe if I didn’t have my maternity care down at St Mary’s in Manchester, I would never have become a mum.

At 24 weeks I found myself on the delivery ward, hooked up to a sliding scale ( insulin drip and hourly sugars monitoring) so they could give me steroids to help his lungs should he be born then. Once I was given the steroids my brilliant re-recurrent miscarriage consultant took me to theater to put a cervical stitch in to give him a little more time. I was dilating and efacing in my 24th week.

That quick action by the staff at the hospital gave him a couple more weeks inside. Until on my third stay on the delivery ward my tiny fighter was born at 27 +1 weeks

I remember it like it was yesterday, and I think I always will. They brought him around quickly after they got him ventilated and hooked up to everything in the incubator, for me to see him quickly, before rushing him off to the NICU.

All the thoughts of having those newborn cuddles disintegrated before my eyes as I watched my son fight for his life. So tiny, his skin so transparent, all I could do was sit by the incubator and talk to him and watch those damn numbers on the monitor . Then came day 5, a day I will never forget and a moment I will cherish forever.

The nurse opened that incubator door, untangled his wires and slid him down the front of my top. I could finally hold my tiny fighter for the first time, feel him next to me. The day I finally felt like a mum.

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