My girls Erin and Lauren were born unexpectedly at 23+5 weeks weighing just 530g. Up until going into pre-term labour I had a great pregnancy and was a picture of health so their premature arrival was a shock.
We hadn’t even started to prepare in any way for the girls arrival, why would we? It was January and they were not due until nearly the end of May. I was not aware of neonatal units at all until my girls were admitted.
We were told to prepare for the worst during labour and I was given steroids and magnesium to help the girls’ very immature lungs and brains. Despite the odds, the girls were showing signs of life and attempting to breathe themselves when they were born. The hospital team managed to get them intubated and on the necessary breathing support but we were told it would be a rollercoaster and to prepare for a very long journey.
I remember the words the neonatal consultant said: “They are not the smallest and their skin is not the thinnest that we have brought through”. In those words there were no promises, no untruths…. but there was hope. I will be forever grateful for those words that meant so much at that point in time.
The very next day in all the papers there was a story about twins who were born at the same hospital that we were in. They were born at 23+4 weeks and they were 11 months old and doing well. Again we took some hope from seeing that story which was so close to our own journey that we were just beginning.
I spent 11 days in hospital and would go up to the neonatal unit all hours of the day to just gaze at the babies and check-in on them. After 11 days I was deemed fit for discharge and had to return home as the hospital did not have facilities for parents to stay close by. The hospital were very supportive when taking the decision to go home, they left it to me to decide and at no time did I feel I was being asked to give up a bed. During those 11 days in hospital, with the support of a breastfeeding adviser, I was able to establish milk production. Although the babies were so tiny and fragile they were able to take very small amounts of my milk through a tube.