PATRICKS NICU JOURNEY

You wouldn't think looking at the wild, spirited boy that he is today, just how fragile Patricks life was almost two years ago. I had absolutely no idea the journey we were set to embark on, and though only a short week, it'll be ingrained in my memory for my entire lifetime. You don't expect to end up in neonatal when you've had a perfectly healthy baby previously, I certainly didn't expect a premature arrival, given his brothers tardiness just a couple of years before. Noah's earthside appearance in 2013 was an induction in early December, as he'd decided his due date just wasn't good enough and so we'd have to wait an extra twelve days. His brother, not one to follow the crowd wanted things on his own terms too, and he shocked us all with a pretty scary start, four weeks early in June 2016. I can't tell you during that month leading up to, and after his birth, how many times I googled for a positive outcome and truthfully I could find barely any accounts of what we were going through. Knowing that, it feels silly that it's taken me almost two whole years to get it down in words - but better late than never ey?

I documented Patricks birth story not too long after we brought him home, I wanted it to be fresh and up to date, which I'm glad I did because there are so many things that now, reading back, I had completely forgotten about. Casting ourselves back to May 2016, the early hours of the night and what seemed like I'd reached that stage of incontinence in pregnancy where I just wet the bed, suddenly turned into the beginning of the end, of my pregnancy with Patrick. Fast forward two weeks and there I lay, 4:30am in Kingsmill Hospital, with a baby P on my chest. The best feeling in the world because a) he was fine and healthy, and b) he had hair. I never wanted a bald baby and I got my wish both times. We were wheeled off down to the maternity ward a couple of hours later, Patrick had been given an IV for antibiotics as my waters had been broken for a few weeks, he was prone to infection and it was precautionary measure. Everything was seeming as though we'd be heading home before we knew it, could I have been more wrong. Alarm bells for me started ringing when Patrick didn't seem to settle, he seemed to be making a guggling noise, but I naively assumed this was just a grumpy baby and he wanted to be on me. After all, we were in the best place possible and the nurses were visiting him so regularly that someone would have picked up if there was an issue, so you would think. At ten thirty a lovely junior doctor appeared and introduced himself, he was doing the rounds and was just going to whizz Patrick over the hallway into neonatal to have a few checks. I told John to go with him, fearing we would be rivalling something from Eastenders and my baby may be swapped for someone elses. But, he was assured that he wasn't needed and John being John, didn't put up a fight. Ten minutes passed by, twenty, thirty and for the third time I found myself asking where my baby was to be hushed with more reassurance just to rest as everything was fine. So I did, and just as I began to doze I heard the familiar noise of his squeaky cot being rolled back into the room, sitting bolt upright in excitement, awaiting my snuggly newborn back into my arms. And then I spied it, I looked at the doctor then back at the empty cot. Patrick was gone, and in his place lay a pile of clothes that he had been wearing. It felt as though my heart hit the top of my throat, then fell into the pit of my stomach - what had happened? Those seconds before he spoke felt like an eternity and in truth I wanted to stay in that moment of unknown, because that state felt better to me that anything he was going to say, my baby wasn't in his cot and I could read the look on his face that told me, this was not good news.

The doctor spoke up, with probably the best words that could have come out of his mouth 'He's ok'. My initial thought was 'He's not dead, thank god he isn't dead', as stark and horrid as those thoughts feel now, it's all I envisioned I was about to be told. If your childs taken away and then their belongings returned, you're going to fear the worse. Patrick wasn't great, a first glance from NICU nurses and they immediately picked up that he was suffering with respiratory distress syndrome. Something that not one of the ten individuals had picked up on who checked him over that morning, the grunting was an obvious sign, along with his blue colour and low temperature but instead by baby struggled, helplessly for hours before he began to get the help he needed. Nothing prepares you for seeing your baby in an incubator, I can't describe it because it's a road I don't really want to go back down. It still hurts and upsets me that I was as helpless as him, for 48 we couldn't touch him for fear of making him less stable. Nobody warns you about a 36 week old baby, not having mature enough lungs to survive, we all breath a sigh of relief when we start heading into the thirty-something weeks of pregnancy, and yet how downhill it can all go so fast. That wasn't Patricks only battle, sepsis loomed. His infection markers were high and they needed to figure out the cause, so immediately he was put on a course to treat sepsis till they could investigate further. 

Our world was flipped upside down. Every moment I had planned out in my head, every outfit I'd envisioned him wearing, the first meeting of our boys, none of it worked out the way it should have and what should have been the happiest days of our lives will undoubtedly go down as the worst. We quickly became accustomed to the NICU suite, and those nurses are absolute gold dust, it didn't matter how many extra hours they were working on top of their 12 hour shift, what had happened at home, or what kind of day they were having - they would go above and beyond everything to care for you and your family. After 24 hours in neonatal, it was clear Patrick wasn't improving, we needed an intervention that was more than ventilation. He had to undergo a surfactant replacement therapy, meaning he would be put to sleep, a tube placed into his windpipe and injected with artificial surfactant. His air sacs couldn't stay open themselves, they were under developed and they needed help, which is ultimately what set him on his road to recovery. 

After the operation it was hard, Patrick was out cold, those memories haunt me and they aren't nice ones to reflect on so I wont dwell for too long. Within twelve hours he was off oxygen and starting to breathe independently for the first time, without problems. I got my first cuddles since his birth and suddenly I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I wont lie and say it isn't hard still, because it is, at that point all I wanted to do was take him home but with photo-therapy and a feeding tube still to combat, we had another few days ahead of us. From that point on Patrick began to thrive and I really took over in his care, after my discharge from maternity I chose to 'room in' on the NICU ward, knowing Noah was in the safe hands of my parents and he could visit, at that moment in time Patrick needed me more and I wouldn't be able to cope not being by his side. It's a choice I'm glad I made and would make over and over again. P began to show traits that have stuck with him for life, he ripped his own feeding tube out, and began to guzzle down the bottles, he stopped being so content in a cot and wanted Mummy cuddles 24/7, sleep just wasn't for him (it still isn't now). And then finally a whole 8 days later, on my birthday, we got to bring our beautiful boy home.

Patricks journey was short in comparison to so many, and for that I do feel lucky. But of course I'd rather have not experienced any of this. I'd contemplated going to visit Prime Lawyers and discuss the hospitals malpractice. But only for the NICU nurses proving that actually, the good far outweigh the bad, did I rethink it. I have my Patrick and I could be more thankful for that.

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