Jacob was born at 25 weeks and 4 days with, what we are led to believe, was due to an infection. When the contractions started Gen, my partner, was rushed from Lincoln County Hospital to Hull Royal Infirmary as we were told due to his size, Jacob would need specialist care there. Gen had managed to hang on for two more days before Jacob arrived, but he clearly was not prepared to wait any longer! I had spent the last 54 hours awake, running purely on sugar, caffeine and adrenaline.
The night he was born I’d plucked up the courage to book into a hotel and catch some sleep, however, Jacob decided otherwise. After a shower and a quick two-hour £90 nap, I got the call. “Get here quick, he’s coming!” The labour room was full of people by the time I got there, doctors, midwives, specialists and surgeons, you name it.
With that he was out. This tiny little human, just skin and bone, no life, no noise, no bigger than my hand, whisked away before my eyes. My worst nightmare right before me. He was taken over to the little incubator bed where four doctors worked on him for what seemed like an eternity, trying my hardest not to listen to the “No response”, “low pulse”, “come on little one, wake up” comments.
I forced myself to focus all my attention on Gen, who was also far from ok. I eventually got the call to come and say hello, and there he was. He weighed 850 grams and was wired up to machines. I remember the doctor saying, “It’s ok, you can touch him”. I felt absolute fear and terror that if I did, I’d hurt him. I managed to hold his hand for a brief second and in a teary-eyed way say, “Hello son I’m your daddy”. His entire palm and fingers were only just spanning my fingernail. Then he was suddenly whisked off to NICU to be made stable and I was told I could visit him “later”.