Okay

Just one little word can have so many meanings.

This was made abundantly clear to me when my second daughter was born at 34 weeks, after having my first at 27 weeks getting to 34 weeks with my second was a miracle and a completely new experience for me. I ended up having an emergency c-section under a general anaesthetic, so after I left recovery I was wheeled down to meet my little girl. As I was taken into intensive care I had an overwhelming feeling of déjà-vu, there was one of my favourite nurses stood next to the incubator with a huge grin on her face and a welcoming comment of ‘what are you doing back here?’ charming!

Then I looked in the incubator and was faced with a completely different sight, there was an actual baby in there, not a strange alien looking creature like her sister, but an actual baby, with chub and everything!! So even though she was in intensive care she was really not requiring much help, just a bit of CPAP and light therapy, I was feeling quite pleased with her, and myself, so I decided to text a few people to let them know she had arrived. The text went ‘Baby girl arrived this afternoon by c-section, we’re both ok’.

The next day my friend came to visit, she’s sat next to my bed in maternity and having dispensed with the pleasantries and I notice she is looking around, a lot!

Me -‘What are you looking for?’

Her -‘The baby’

Me – ‘She’s in the NICU’

Her – ‘But you said she’s ok’

Me – ‘She is ok’

Her – ‘Then why is she in the NICU?’

The conversation carried on for awhile, with me explaining that the baby was fine, that even though she was doing well she was still 6 weeks prem and so it was expected that she would need to spend some time on the NNU, and in my eyes she was fine. I think my friend was forgetting that I had previously had a 27 weeker, as she really couldn’t understand why I was saying that my baby was ok. It made me think about the times people would ask how Heidi was doing while still in hospital and I would often answer with ‘fine’ or ‘okay’ and how this might have been misleading to them. I didn’t say it with the intention of being misleading, I genuinely meant it.

So here is my definition of the word okay…

‘Okay’ means that although my baby is in hospital and currently ventilated/on CPAP today is good, she isn’t going downhill/requiring a blood transfusion/doesn’t have an infection/has not needed any extra tests/scans/x-rays, today she is stable, today she is okay.

I dream of Freddy

I signed up to this blogging lark full of enthusiasm and raring to go, my head was full of ideas, but of course, as soon as I started to write the first post...nothing, all thoughts have left and I'm staring at a blank page with a small feeling of 'oh no' growing inside me. So I started to think about what inspired me to start a blog, basically my children, and I thought back to how it all began....
Once upon a time (3 1/2 years ago), in a land far far away (well, about 10 miles) I sat staring blankly at the doctors as they tried to tell me that even though I've packed my bag and I'm ready to leave the maternity ward, it's not going to happen, that's it, I had become an inmate. At 26 weeks pregnant the thought of spending weeks, as I then thought it would be, stuck in a room on my own, was sending me stir crazy after only a few hours! I had been told that I was to stay in until the baby arrived, which they assured me would be weeks, the plan was to get me to at least 30 weeks. None of this really meant anything to me, I was happily naive about the whole thing and my only thought was how was I going to cope without my film and book collection. Four days later and I was whisked off to the labour ward to be prepped for an emergency c-section as the pre-eclampsia had progressed far quicker than had been anticipated, several hours and lots of morphine later I was wheeled down to NICU to meet my baby for the first time.
Heidi was born at 27+2 weeks gestation and weighed 2lbs. When we met for the first time I could just about make out a tiny scrap of red through the condensation on the incubator walls, and under all the tubes and wires and a green hat that seemed to cover her entire body.
My first memories of meeting my baby are of lying next to her incubator and having morphine filled dreams about watching Queen perform live! Which, in my drug addled state inspired me to want to name her Freddy, luckily, I think, I waited several days, until I stopped having morphine and finally named her Heidi.
So, feeling completely lost and scared, but humming 'Don't Stop Me Now' to myself, Heidi and I began the long journey home.