Thank you to my husband and family

In September 2016 our little boy Jacob arrived in the world at 32 weeks, less than 12 hours after my waters broke. Prior to this I’d had a normal pregnancy apart from sickness. Right up to two hours before Jacob was born I was told that I wouldn’t go into labour and that any pains I was feeling were due to my body reacting to being without my waters. I wasn’t mentally prepared for Jacob to arrive, and so naively didn’t realise what this meant – that he would be taken straight away, without me touching or holding him, or what the next six weeks would look like. 

Precious first picture 

There were around 10 consultants and doctors in the room when Jacob was born and they worked on him for a few minutes before rushing him away. My sister, who is a midwife, was also in the room and, unbeknown to me, understood everything that was going on. Before they took Jacob away she asked if they could let me touch him. My husband Marc was quick with the camera and managed to take a picture of me stroking Jacob’s face. I thought nothing of it at the time, as I genuinely thought he would be brought back to me pretty quickly. However, my sister had asked if I could touch him because of the lack of positive signs he was showing and the reactions of the consultants; she didn’t know whether that would be my only opportunity to touch him.

Wired to machines 

At four hours old Jacob was put under general anaesthetic for a lifesaving procedure on his lungs and intubated. He was eight hours’ old when I was able to see him again. All I can remember is how this tiny precious boy had gone from a safe environment where he heard the ‘beat beat’ of my heart, to the ‘beep beep’ of all the machines he was wired to. It is at this point that the guilt and hatred for myself set in. I felt that I had failed him, that I had one job to do which was to grow him and keep him safe and I’d failed. 

For the next few weeks we learnt to care for Jacob, more like nurses than parents: feeding him through his tube, checking his vitals, extracting the contents of his stomach to check his PH levels, while confined to our 6ft by 6ft (1.8m x 1.8m) corner of the NICU we called home. The sound of that room is something that haunts my nightmares. My husband had to go back to work after his paternity leave and I remember calling him with results of brain bleeds and in tears when the chaplains had visited to pray at Jacob’s incubator. 

Leaving NICU for home

Two weeks before Jacob’s due date we were finally able to bring him home. While we were so happy and relieved to be home, I continued to struggle with the guilt I felt, and developed panic attacks.

Jacob has sub mucus cleft palette, a bifid uvula, and hearing loss that resulted in him wearing bilateral hearing aids. However, he is the sweetest little boy, with a hilarious little personality and takes everything in his stride.

Searching for answers

A review of Jacob and myself to investigate why he came early hasn’t brought back any results: neither of us had any of the usual complications that result in pre-term labour and, while medically I am being told that I did not cause Jacob to arrive in this world early, without an explanation I find it very difficult to move away from my default feeling that somehow I caused this.

 Six months after Jacob was born I started a type of trauma therapy called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) which has really helped me deal with the circumstances around Jacob’s birth. While I do still believe that in some way my actions or behaviour led to him coming early, the feelings no longer engulf me and the panic attacks have ceased.

I’d like to thank my husband and my family, and the incredible staff at the NICU, for being there in those terrifying early days and every day since. While the circumstances have broken me on so many occasions, I know as a family we are stronger because of it.

With thanks to Laura Bowland for sharing Jacob’s story.