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A few years ago, I began writing childrenβs literature. I love the way a difficult topic can be approached so gently, with love and care through picture books. I decided I would like to add to the amazing NICU support network by creating a picture book, not only for siblings of newborns who begin their life in NICU, but also to give extended families and friends basic insight and understanding of what it is like. That is why I wrote Come Home Ellaβ¦
But first, here is the story of my own NICU journeyβ¦
It was around 2am on 31st July 2013 when my dreams were interrupted by a nightmare of gushing water and sopping wet sheets. My waters brokeβ¦ but Iβm not due for another 3 months! I must be dreamingβ¦
I made the hasty decision to drive myself to hospital, leaving my two blissfully sleeping young boys with their extremely bewildered Dad. The streetlamps blurring past on the deserted avenue gave a surreal sensation of moving through an underground tunnel. Surely this is a dream!
Utterly confused I parked the car and hobbled to the hospitals front entrance. I pressed the afterhours intercomβ¦onceβ¦ twiceβ¦ three timesβ¦ where is everyone!? I knocked loudly on the locked glass doorsβ¦ it looks deserted! In-between tears I pressed the after-hours intercom continuously until someone finally answered. Ok, calm down, help is on the way, any minute now I will see the man on the other end who says he will meet me at the entrance. Any minute nowβ¦. I tried the buzzer again, the same man answered sounding as confused as I felt, βI think itβs likely youβre at the old entrance; we have recently moved.β Seriouslyβ¦ what a nightmare!
News of the new private hospital opening began seeping back into my frantic mind. Luckily, the new location was in the same complex as the old hospital, just a different building. More long minutes passed before a man came into view pushing an empty wheelchair. Gliding through a maze of glass sliding doors and narrow hallways, I am wheeled into a room in the new hospital and helped onto a bed of crisp linen to await my obstetrician.
Not long after my obstetrician arrived, I learnt of the gaping hole in my uterus, compliments of a fidgety footling breach foetus, with no means of repair. Sympathetically, I am basically told to hold her in for as long as I can!! Hmmmβ¦ bed rest for up to 13 weeks with two children under the age of 6 and moving-house in a just few weeks β this is not adding up at all. Wake me up!!
Two huge steroid shots to the buttocks later, I am being transferred by ambulance to King Edward Hospital and the watchful eye of a leading obstetrician specialising in difficult births.
I remember the βhospitalβ smell on arrivalβ¦ heightened significantly by outrageous pregnancy hormones. A smell I would soon get used to, as I resigned to the fact this will be home for the next few months while my baby βamazinglyβ continues to develop in a dry, deflated womb. But hey, there is a crochet group (something Iβve always wanted to learn) β how bad could it be!
I never did make it to crochet group. Instead, my days involved reading, bad daytime tv, hovering my pen over the custard or ice-cream boxes on my meals card (before eventually ticking both), visits from family and friends, but mostly worrying about what was to comeβ¦
Turns out I neednβt had worried for long. Around 7pm on 1st August, exactly one week after I was admitted to King Edward hospital, our baby girl decided it was time to enter the world, at only 28 weeks gestation. Footling breach position did nothing to slow her down, she was comingβ¦ fast!