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.

Look for the positives

As a parent of a premature you get used to hearing lots of different reactions when people find out. Some people are genuinely caring and supportive (these are very few and far between, unless they also happen to be a premmie parent!) others know exactly how you feel, why, their cousin had a baby that spent a few days in NICU, so of course they know how I as a parent of a 27 weeker who spent 3 months NICU feels. The kind that you encounter most frequently are the people who really don't know what to say and clearly don't want to carry on the conversation, so they say the first positive thing they can think of while they are busy trying to work out how to get out of the situation!
So here is a list of the oh so helpfully positive things I have been told about having a prem baby

1. Oh bless, so cute and tiny - really? have you ever seen a prem baby, because although they are obviously beautiful to their parents, they are weird looking, kind of like aliens!
2. You must save a fortune on clothes - yes, my baby staying in the same size clothes for six months because she doesn't put on weight doesn't actually worry me because it's saved me some money.
3. You've got a built in babysitter (while the baby is still in hospital) - because the first thing you want to do while your baby is in intensive care is go out clubbing!
4. You can catch up on sleep (while the baby is in hospital) - sleep? what's sleep? because I for one didn't get much during the whole three months.
5. You're so lucky for not going full term - I would rather have gone a month overdue than watch my baby have to go through all the trauma of being early.
6. You're so lucky for not having labour - again, give me labour for a week rather than have an early baby.
7. You've lost lots of weight - stress, coupled with practically inedible hospital food, best diet I know!

Ok, so I realise that I may be coming across as a little bitter when people are just trying to be friendly, but it is really difficult to keep a smile on your face while these things get said to you, no matter how well intentioned they are. I manage most of the time, I have the occasional slip, but for the whole I keep a polite smile on my face then quickly move away, but one day, I don't know when, one day I will not be able to keep the polite smile on, and who knows what will happen then....

And then there were two

About two years after lying on the operating table while having a c-section with my first, and swearing I would never have any more children, I fell ill with a mysterious sickness bug! I know, it sounds obvious already doesn’t it, but I went along, naively complaining that the bug was lasting longer than 24 hours, and why was it only affecting me? After some gentle persuasion from a friend (Lisa, will you please do a bloody pregnancy test!) I finally bought a test and did it early one morning, I was so confident in the result, as I knew I was definitely NOT pregnant, that I even went back to sleep before looking at the results, then when I woke about 20 minutes later and blearily looked at the stick to see the word (yes, you guessed it) pregnant I was sent into a mild panic. My friend who had persuaded me to take the test received an early morning phone call over the result, because obviously it was her fault!

You see, it wasn’t that I didn’t want any more children, but after spending three months in the NICU with my first, it wasn’t an experience I wanted to repeat, which the doctors had done a good job at persuading me would happen if I had anymore children. So off I went to see my consultant, only to be faced with another doctor, someone who did a fantastic job at sending me into even more of a panic, he declared that the baby would definitely be born before 27 weeks and smaller than 2lbs, he then asked why I was looking upset! After some serious foot stamping and tantrum throwing on my part I saw my consultant, who managed to undo the panic that his colleague had sent me into.

The pregnancy wasn’t the easiest, and I had several stays in hospital, at my 34 week appointment (by this stage I was seeing my consultant and having weekly scans) I was told that I was having the baby now, and to be honest, I was so pleased to get that far I felt quite happy with that, or maybe it was because the consultant looked a lot like Derren Brown, so I may have just looked into his eyes too much. So I went up for my second c-section, which this time I had under general anaesthetic, and several hours later I was wheeled down the corridor to meet baby number two, and have take two at the NICU.

It was a slightly bizarre feeling to be going there again, but made easier knowing that this baby would be a lot healthier and need a lot less help than my first. Elsie Rose weighed a hefty 5lb 13oz and required a day, just one day, on cpap.  She stayed on the unit for just under 4 weeks, and then the hard work really started, two children at home, what had I let myself in for!

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.