Before my son, I had 6 early miscarriages. With each one, I lost a little more hope that I would ever become a mother.
When I found out I was pregnant with him, I couldn’t feel excited. Despite the testing I had done, and the plan I had put in place, I still couldn’t help but feel it would end in the same way my other pregnancies had.
That magical moment so many have - when they find out they’re pregnant and tell their loved ones - was completely taken from me. And then when he arrived nearly 12 weeks early, it felt like the universe was telling me that I wasn’t meant to bring a baby home. Every NICU journey looks different. I can only speak to ours.
I found the uncertainty incredibly difficult to deal with. I didn’t know how long we would be in hospital, whether he would survive, and if he did, whether he would face long term health challenges. All I could do was take it one day at a time.
While I was under general, the neonatal team were in the same room trying to stabilise my baby - the extent of which I didn’t realise until I read his discharge summary. He was then transferred to the NICU for further treatment. I know births rarely go the way we hope, but I felt like everything I had dreamt of had been stolen from me.
The excitement of going into labour, knowing you’ll soon meet your baby. And most of all, that indescribable feeling of holding them the moment they’re born. Instead I woke up without my baby, not knowing whether he was even alive.
Going home for the first time without my baby, having to trust a whole new team, left me feeling terrified and utterly helpless.
When I did get to meet him a few hours later, he was so tiny and fragile. He weighed 2lb 9oz. No photo could ever show how small he really was. Wires, an NG tube, a central line, cannulas. He was completely covered, and needed help breathing. I fell in love with him the moment I saw him. But along with that came the fear of losing him, particularly as we still didn’t know why his heart rate had been dropping in the first place.
The first ten nights were spent at the Level 3 unit. Once I was discharged I had to leave and stay nearby. Leaving him for the first time was one of the most painful moments of my life. You’re supposed to leave hospital carrying your baby in their car seat.
We were then transferred to our local hospital. I wasn’t allowed to stay with him. Going home for the first time without my baby, having to trust a whole new team, left me feeling terrified and utterly helpless. Nearly twelve weeks in hospital. My entire third trimester spent by his side.
You become obsessed with watching them, reading every observation, checking every number.
Being in the NICU is frightening in ways that are hard to explain. I watched babies around me deteriorate. Families receive news no parent should ever have to receive. The monitors bleep constantly. I can still hear them sometimes. You become obsessed with watching them, reading every observation, checking every number. And at the start, he didn’t feel like mine. It felt like he belonged to the hospital. I felt like I needed to check everything with the nurses before I did anything.
And somehow, you fall into a routine. Tube feeds. Nappy changes - initially through the incubator, with nappies so small that even the smallest premature nappies needed to be folded in half. Hours spent cuddling him.
Expressing every few hours, round the clock. Even at home, setting alarms throughout the night to pump. Not because your newborn needs feeding, but because you’ve left your baby in hospital, and it’s the one thing you can do for him when you’re not there. That unit becomes your whole world. He went through countless tests and procedures throughout his stay. Some painful for him to endure, and for me to watch.
Then there was the fear of infection. Before the NICU, I wasn’t anxious about hygiene, but while he was there, I was. I had watched babies pick up infections and deteriorate. I washed and sanitised my hands until they bled. Barely anyone was allowed to touch him until we came home. It wasn’t about being difficult. It was the only way I knew to protect him.
The worrying was relentless. Always listening for my phone, dreading the call I couldn’t bear to think about. I was at the hospital constantly. But if I ever had to be somewhere else, even briefly, I couldn’t switch off. The guilt and fear never left.
Other than the things I’d bought before he was born, I didn’t buy anything else until a few days before we came home. I never truly believed he would come home, and I worried that if I bought anything more, I would jinx it.
Just before discharge, we had moved into a private room on the ward to prepare for going home. No constant monitoring. Just the two of us. We were days away from leaving. And then he was back in intensive care. After everything we had been through, there we were again, right back to where it had all started. The following morning I was told he would need surgery after discharge for an unrelated issue. I walked out of the room and broke down.
Bringing him home was wonderful, yet terrifying. For months, there had always been someone there. Medical help whenever we needed it, and him attached to a monitor at all times. Then suddenly, it was just me and my baby.
As much as I couldn’t wait to leave, I grieved walking away from the staff who had become like family. Although he was nearly 12 weeks old, he was the size and weight of a newborn. His prematurity also brought its own challenges.
The NICU experience doesn’t leave you when you go home. I was so scared he would stop breathing that I sourced a medical grade monitor myself. It wasn’t something the hospital sent us home with. I checked on him constantly throughout the night. If he was unwell, I set hourly alarms.
Any concern and I was taking him to the hospital to be checked. I took him so many times that first year. And every single time we walked through those doors, the fear came flooding back.
There wasn’t space to fall apart in the NICU. I was on autopilot.
It wasn’t until about a year later, when life finally quietened, he was sleeping through the night, and my anxiety over his health had started to ease, that the trauma caught up with me. I developed postnatal depression. The weight of everything I had been carrying finally hit me, and it hit me hard. I hadn’t had the chance to process any of it until then.
A couple of years ago, I took him back to the unit. His journey will always be part of our story. I wanted the staff who changed our lives to see how far he had come.
A few years later, my daughter arrived. I had always wanted more children, but I was terrified of going through it all again. My experience with her was completely different. No difficulty conceiving, a healthy pregnancy, and I got to be with her from the very beginning.
I call her my healing baby. Her arrival was a huge part of my healing, even if I didn’t realise it at the time. When I look at my little boy, I no longer see the NICU. I just see him.
A couple of years ago, I took him back to the unit. His journey will always be part of our story. I wanted the staff who changed our lives to see how far he had come. And for him to see where it all started.
His birthday still gets me. Even putting this together has made me far more emotional than I expected. But when I look at him, my miracle baby, I feel a pride and gratitude that I can’t put into words. He is a fighter.
