Felicity was taken straight from theatre to the Oliver Fisher Unit, which is a specialist baby unit. I had looked around the unit before I gave birth to her, as a practise that every new to be parents should see. I’m so glad that I did. It had scared me, seeing all the big machines and the tiny babies. It was very quiet except for the sound of machines and the odd noise from one of the incubators.
Felicity wasn’t meant to make an entrance into the world until the 23rd August. However on the 19th July, she made her entrance via caesarean.
For the first seven minutes, she was able to breathe for herself but then she started to struggle. The neonatal doctors then took her with Samuel to intensive care on the Oliver Fisher Baby Unit. I was unable to move to the unit straightaway because I was on the recovery ward. It was really hard to watch her being taken away from me. That unconditional love you feel as soon as you hold your baby is something that words can’t describe. I just wanted to protect her and my heart felt like a part of it was missing with her not being there.
Samuel stayed with Felicity and darted between the intensive care and the delivery suite where I was. He tried to reassure me that Felicity was doing ok but not being there with her made me worry about her.
The doctors didn’t think that I would be able to get up from the surgery until the Monday (Felicity was born on the Friday). However, nothing was going to stop me getting to see our baby as soon as possible. The pain from my new scar was bearable but difficult to move with. I willed my body to move through the pain and at 11.20pm, I managed to sit on the side of the bed and be moved into a wheelchair. I was sore but I just needed to see my girl even if it was for five minutes.
When we entered the neonatal unit, the big machines swamped the room. Once we had washed our hands thoroughly, we sat by the side of Felicity’s incubator. She had a tube going into her mouth that was helping her to breathe but she was on minimal help. She looked so tiny with lots of wires around her. I could just put a couple of fingers into the incubator and I yearned to hold her.
Samuel asked by chance if I could hold her and to our surprise, they said yes! Felicity’s little body felt so small and light when she was passed to me, alongside all the wires. As Samuel sat by my side and I held onto Felicity, my world felt complete.
Felicity stayed on intensive care for the next day. Samuel spent time darting from the ward that I was on and the neonatal unit. Thankfully, you could visit at any time, and I spent the time willing my body to continue working so I could spend as much time as possible with her. This meant I could only go once, maybe twice a day. It was incredibly difficult. The unit Felicity was on was amazing. She was looked after so well. In intensive care, she had a one to one nurse looking after her. She was really quiet in the incubator and hardly made a sound when she was taken out. They gave her a nasal gastric tube, which was difficult to see because it reminded me of the time that I had lived on a tube too.
In the evening of the second day, she was moved to the High Dependency Unit next door. They had weaned her off the breathing tube and off any other machines. She had a cannula in her arm and it was tiny! It was lovely because there were slightly less machines and there were sensory lights. The nurse looking after her was amazing. His name was Richard and he would sing and talk to all the babies he looked after. It looked a lot less clinical than ICU did – she was one step closer to being reunited with me.
Felicity did amazingly well, and they decided to try and give her some milk from a bottle rather than the tube. They also moved her from an incubator to a cot. In one day, they did a lot of ‘firsts’. She was only in the high dependency unit for the day before she was moved to transitional care. Here, they reunite the babies with their mothers, and a neonatal nurse looks after the baby, and a midwife looks after the mum. It is the last step before coming home. It was emotional to be reunited with Felicity. I couldn’t believe that it was true, that she had fought everything in the first days of her life to make a good recovery from being born five weeks early.
We enjoyed some time together as a family, as we started to make those bonds. I held onto her and she looked perfect. All she had was a NG tube that they were trying not to use so she became more stable on her own. As the first night was upon us, the neonatal nurse came to introduce herself. For some reason, I felt like I knew her. We did a double take, and as soon as she said that her name was Hannah, I recognised her from the children’s ward that I was on back in 2006. It was crazy to think that she was now looking after my daughter, when she had looked after me thirteen years before!
The stay on transitional care was short, and on the Tuesday, Felicity had done so well that she was discharged before I was, (it was still on the same day). Thankfully, we were able to go home and start the next chapter of our lives. The neonatal unit was incredible and really showed the best of the NHS. They were so thorough and really looked after Felicity so well. We were on there for a short time, but for some parents, their babies are on there for months and it really is a lovely place. It is by no means the ideal place for your baby to have to go to, but it is made so much easier that it is a lovely unit.