I cant believe it was 7 days ago that she was born, it feels like a life time ago yet it seems like I have only had 2 seconds of seeing her beautiful face. Its as if life never really existed until she was born, we were just floating along waiting for that day to come and we never even knew it....only other mums (and dads!) will understand what I mean, its like all this time you have spent on this earth up until the second she was born was just time spent getting ready for her arrival, you never really know what it is to truly need some one in your life until you see her face and realise that nothing will ever be the same again. This tiny person is depending on me and yet all I can think is that I depend on her, I need her, I simply cannot live with out her.
I had been told that when Holly was born there would be 50% chance that she would survive the delivery so myself and Matt were petrified from the moment she came out. She was rushed away from us where we couldn't see - we just had to wait. She was moved onto a little bed in the corner of the room where 2 nurses, a consultant pediatrician, a registrar and 2 midwifes all worked on her. They worked very hard for about 15 minutes to get her ventilation tube in her to make sure she could breathe and to get her stable. Matt and I heard what we can only describe as a little squeak from where she was being worked on, which we later found out was her trying to cry! Lauren (the registrar) did an amazing job and saved our little girl, with out her Holly would not have been able to breathe for very long as she was too small and would have gotten too tired, so we are eternally grateful to Lauren and Richard (the consultant pediatrician) for saving Holly's life that day. There are no words to describe how grateful I am to all the people who helped Holly survive the delivery, they will be forever in our hearts and we will never forget how lucky we are that there are people in the world who can do what they do.
Once Holly was stable, she was brought over to us on her special little bed so we could see how beautiful she was - our little girl who we had been told the day before was a little boy! - and Richard asked if I wanted to touch her...... my heart nearly leapt out of my chest, of course I wanted to touch her, I wanted to hold her and cuddle her and kiss her...... I reached over to her tiny little hand a touched her so gently and she clasped her tiny fingers around the tip of one of mine and squeezed it so tight..... I can't describe how it felt to feel her hold onto me, it is immeasurable.
There was a long 7 hours before we were able to see our little girl again.... we had asked a few times how she was but no one would tell us anything and we were just left waiting. Finally at about 1.30am the midwife came in and told us we could go and see her. So Matt wheeled me round to the Neo Natal ward where she will be spending the next 4-5 months getting well enough to come home. When we went into the room and saw her tiny body inside the incubator with tubes in her mouth, tummy, legs and arms, and wires attached to her feet, hands and arms - it was all too much.She was so small and needed all this support just to keep her alive..... we stayed with her for a while before we were taken back to our room on the labour ward where we sat for the rest of the night thinking and talking about how beautiful she was even though she was covered in all the wires and tubes.
The next morning we went in to see her and the doctors came to talk to us about what was happening. She was stable and had been all night, she was doing alot of the breathing on her own and was only being supported 60 % of the time (some babies as small as Holly need to be supported 100% of the time) and her oxygen levels were set relatively low at about 40%. She had already had a blood transfusion during the night and was on antibiotics to fight the infection she had gotten from being inside me when I had an infection. As well as this she was being tube fed something called TPN to help her nutritionally and help her grow. She was stablising her own heart rate and keeping her blood pressure down all on her own. She was amazingly strong and was doing so well already, but we were still told to take it one day at a time as anything could happen.
Since then alot has happened....... she had Jaundice and had to have photo therapy (which is not uncommon even in full term babies) she has had 3 scans of her brain to check for hemorrhages and bleeding - all have been clear so far! Her line into her belly that was giving her the nutrition came out so she needed to have a new one put in and after a few attempts they finally managed to get one in her leg, which was a major step forward as she was loosing weight. Yesterday they heard a murmur on her heart so they did an echo to see what was going on and found out she has a hole in her heart where a duct didn't close at birth that should of done, so she is now on medication to try and close that with out surgery. She also had another blood transfusion today as her red blood cells were dropping low and as she is currently anemic they didn't want it to drop any further.
She spends her days laying in her incubator under her little bubble wrap blanket which helps keep her warm, all the nurses call her a little wriggler as she doesn't like to lay still for too long and is always kicking her legs up and down trying to feel whats in the world around her! Matt and I have started doing her cares, this means we get to clean her face and mouth (she likes to suck on the end of the wet cotton bud we use to clean her mouth - she looks so cute with her little chin going up and down whilst shes chomping away!) we also get to change her nappy, which is fantastic to us as we thought we wouldn't get to do that for a long time, the first time I changed her nappy was the fist time she had done poo - I never thought I'd be excited about seeing or changing a pooey nappy, but I was over the moon!! we also rub her body with a type of moisturiser to stop her skin getting dry and sore, she loves this! She stretches her little arms above her head so you can get into all the nooks and crannies and just lays there letting you rub her tummy with the moisturiser for as long as you want to.She can't see yet as her eye lids are still fused together but she likes to listen to mine and Matts voices and will calm down if shes being a fidget bum if we talk to her or sing to her. She is also quite partial to a foot rub (like her mummy!) and she likes to touch things with her feet and curl her little toes around your finger tip if you tickle them.... simply put, she is the most adorable creature I have ever had the privalage to meet, she blows me away every second I spend with her, and I fall more and more in love with her every minute of every day.
I have tried to catch you up to speed as best I can and will up date you regularly with how well she is doing.
Please keep wishing and praying for her to get better and to gain weight and become strong enough to come home with Matt and I so we can start our new family life together, the 3 of us - happy, healthy and together forever.
x
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| Holly touching her nose and ear. |
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| Holly using Matts finger as a teddy bear. |
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