Holly's Diary: 8 weeks & 4 days old

Holly is the most amazing and strong baby girl I have ever known. She astounds the doctors and nurses with her progress nearly every single day. Her ability to learn new things and conquer all the problems she faces completely astonishes me, she is stronger than I ever believed possible, and in turn Matt and I are luckier, and prouder, than either of us had ever imagined we would be given the chance to be.

I say we are lucky, how ever I don’t think luck really has much to do with it. Holly is an entity unto her self, she has so much fight in her that she doesn’t really need luck….. Plus she has an enormous amount of love surrounding her, and so many people from all walks of life wishing her well that I’m sure if love were water, she could fill all the oceans in the world (and probably, knowing Holly, swim the backstroke!).

The three of us have now moved onto our third and final stop before home. We are in the Special Care Baby Unit (“scbu” as they refer to it) in Warwick, which is wonderful, not only as it means we are nearly at the end of this long, mentally exhausting journey, but we are only half a mile away from our baby girl, even when we are asleep! Half a mile may seem like a long way for other mums of new born babies, but to Matt and I its so close that it almost feels like we could look out of our window at night and see into hers (obviously we can’t, but we can pretend!). When we first arrived at Warwick Hospital, we were allocated a private room in case Holly had picked up a bug or infection from Coventry or on the journey, and we had to wait 48hrs for her test results to come back clean before the nurses would stop wearing gloves and aprons to touch Holly. Having our own room was so wonderful, it felt like our own little private home away from home (however saying that, where ever Holly is feels like home to me) it was so lovely for it to be just the 3 of us all the time and not have to share it with other mums and dads - don’t get me wrong, I’m not being anti-social, its just nice to have some privacy with our baby for the first time in 8 weeks.

Holly has now been off oxygen support since 26^th December, before she was even 30 weeks gestation! so 3 weeks and 1 day ago she started breathing all on her own for the first time (apart from the occasional few hours here and there for the first few days) and considering she should still be in my tummy getting her oxygen through the umbilical cord for another 10 weeks, is an amazing feat! The doctors say to Matt and I that it is “amazing” that she is breathing all by herself at such a young age and the nurse explained that they would generally expect a baby born at Holly’s age to still be on CPAP (the mask over nose) until around 35 weeks gestation….. She is also learning to breast feed at the moment, she had her first attempt 2 weeks ago (at 31 weeks gestation) and managed to feed for a good 5 mins. Again, she is not supposed to be even thinking about doing this until around 34 weeks, and the nurse that helped me described Holly as a “little marvel” for being able to learn to breast feed at such a young age. She has since managed anywhere up to 10 mins, but she gets tired easily and just falls asleep, very contented with her achievement!

I am currently at home, hibernating, due to the fact that I have the most mundane and irritating of ailments…. A cold! This means that I cannot even see my baby girl until my symptoms have gone, let alone hold her and kiss her. I have considered every option: pretending to the nurses that I feel better and hoping I can mask my coughs and sneezes long enough to visit her or popping in for just 10 mins to look through the incubator at her and tell her I love her, and finally just thinking “sod it! I’m not going to miss a second of my baby girl growing up just because of this stupid, lingering cold". Then, after getting ready to leave the house, I realised that I was doing it for me, not for Holly, and that was selfish. Surely I could manage just a few days of not visiting if it meant I wouldn’t give Holly my cold (a cold to Holly could mean that she could have to be in-tubated again and go back to intensive care, and could literally be life threatening, as Matt and I both witnessed in Coventry). Besides, Holly has THE BEST daddy in the whole world, and as long as he is looking after her, that puts my mind at ease. So I am currently sitting at home, going through my second box of Kleenex (menthol scented btw – amazing when you have a blocked up nose!) feeling very jealous and sorry for myself that Matt has spent the last three days with Holly with out me, but he has put all of his newfound parenting skills to good use! And I have to say he has surprised me and surpassed my expectations…. Even I can’t figure out how to put a baby grown on little Holly inside the incubator with all the wires by myself, but some how daddy Matt can!! He’s a lot braver than me when he has been having her out for a cuddle as well…. holding her with one hand and reading her a bed time story with the other… He’s such a good daddy and has been really enjoying his alone time with Holly, which is lovely really as I often get alone time with her when Matt has to go and work at home.

I cannot explain how amazing it is to have a little girl as wonderful as Holly (I’m sure every parent feels that way about their child, but I guess not every one starts their parenthood not knowing if their baby will survive). I’m lucky in a way, because every up and down that we have been through means I will never take what I have for granted. I realise, and have seen first hand, how amazing it is for someone to just be able to do something as simple as breathing in and out, to learn that basic human function is exhausting and enormous for a baby, but you usually don’t witness it, it all goes on inside your tummy, and it makes you realise just how amazing we are as human beings, how we rely on our bodies to automatically know what to do… they don’t. It has to be learnt. As I have watched Holly do for the last 2 months.