How I ended up in the NICU.

I discuss the lead in to, and my first of 98 days inside the NICU with my new daughter.

My wife and I were destined for IVF after failing to fall pregnant for well over a year.  We started all of the IVF testing, and we were able to identify what was stopping us from falling pregnant. 

Just before we were about to commence the first round, we fell pregnant!  But as it would play out, our special little girl wanted to make up for all of that lost time!

Our daughter arrived at 25+5 weeks, and was on life support in the NICU for the first 6 days. This place felt so foreign to me, and I was quite scared to be in here.  I was so worried that my daughter would not survive, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do. 

My wife and I were certainly not expecting to be in the NICU, let alone at 25 weeks gestation!  But this was our path now, and we had to walk it together!

Transcript

Our dream of what was going to be our ideal and planned birth, could not have been further from the reality that unfolded.  There was no calm and tranquil water birth, no relaxing music, no candles, no catching of the baby, no happy crying baby on delivery, and no chest time for mum and bub.  What actually happened was pretty scary and traumatic. 

INTRO

Today, I want to share my story, right back to where it began, up until the birth of my daughter and her arrival into the NICU.  Some of the content may be very confronting for you, so please listen with caution. 

My wife and I had been waiting for the right time to start our family, but we quickly learnt that we have absolutely zero control over the timing! We were trying to fall pregnant for well over a year with no luck.  Jess had a number of surgeries and countless tests to identify what was going on, and I went through my own testing during our IVF consultations. 

It turned out that I had a very low sperm count, and of the total number of swimmers, only 3-5% were going to be active and functional.  That came as a pretty big shock to me, and rocked me pretty hard.  I felt inadequate and hugely disappointed and depressed. 

We were resigned to the fact that we were going to have to go through IVF to fall pregnant, and we were fine with that.  Ironically, 1 month before we were about to start our IVF journey Jess fell pregnant!  The utter jubilation and relief we both felt was pure ecstasy!  We were so bloody excited and could not wait for the path that was laid ahead – or what we thought our path was going to be! 

What followed were 23 weeks of excruciating sickness for my wife, and a level of discomfort that she had never felt before.  She had all of the regular tests and screenings along the way and nothing out of the ordinary was detected.  But Jess still felt like absolute crap the whole way through. She only had a 2 week period of feeling good, which was the lead in to what was about to happen. 

Our plan was to have a water birth in the Birthing Suite at the Royal Brisbane & Women’s Hospital. We had been in to have an initial walk through and a consult with our midwife, and all was looking positive.  We were both really excited about what was ahead of us.  

A few months before Jess fell pregnant, she told me about a dream she had one night where she was sitting in a Special Care Unit, holding a little baby with dark hair, and said to her dad “isn’t she cute!?”.. Jess knew straight away that it was an omen, and when she was admitted to hospital with complications at 25+1, she knew in the pit of her stomach what was going to unfold. 

Jess woke me up early one Thursday morning, and said she thinks she needs to go into Hospital for a check-up, so off we went.  She was admitted later that afternoon, and this began our journey.  She was immediately jabbed with two courses of steroids to help our little fighter out, and we were given crash course on what might happen, which included a tour of the NICU on the Sunday.  We joked with each other that “oh we won’t be here for ages, we don’t need to see it”.  Little did we know that within 24 hours, our daughter would be in there, fighting for her life, for the next 98 days. 

Monday morning rolled around, and our bathroom was scheduled for full renovation.  I met the builders at home at 7am and discussed what we wanted, and they immediately started to rip it all out – so I knew I had a bit on my plate at this stage.  Busy at work, bathroom reno’s and a wife in hospital.  

On the doctors rounds that morning Jess was informed that she had been going really well and the Doctors were happy if she wanted to go home, as we fortunately only lived 10min from the hospital. She knew something wasn’t right and asked to stay a bit longer.  Lucky for everyone that she listened to her body and trusted her instincts. She had already had a test conducted that indicated she only had a 5% chance her baby could be born in the next two weeks… That was about to be proven wrong!

I went in to see Jess around 10am, and she was having coffee at the hospital café with a few friends.  At about 10:45 she started to have a few Braxton Hicks, which she had been having on and off for a few weeks leading into this.  But these were different, they started to hurt when they hadn’t before, and the pain was referring to her back.  We went upstairs to the ward and I started tracking the contractions. They were every 4 minutes, then every 3, then every 2. At about 11:30 Jess started to get a bit worried, as she was beginning to lose a lot of blood.  The amazing midwifes knew this was not right, and hit the alarm button and she was rushed downstairs to the delivery suites.  

She was dosed up with two rounds of magnesium, which immediately made her feel like she was on fire, and made her so uncomfortable it was hard to watch!  But she knew it was all for our little bub’s benefit. 

They put sensors on Jess to hear our baby’s heart beat, and our little adventurous bub was moving around a fair bit so it was hard to lock on to her. When they finally did, the Doc wasn’t happy with what he was seeing and hearing, and immediately called for the emergency bell to be activated.

Jess was rushed away Category 1, and was about to have a Classical ceaser, which meant a full T cut.  They were literally running to the surgery ward with her, and there was a huge sense of panic in everyone’s faces, needless to say I was absolutely shitting myself!

As we were all running down the corridor, I was bumped into a waiting area as I wasn’t able to go in because Jess would be under General anesthetic.  The last thing I was told was “both mum and bub are very sick, prepare for the worst”.   Oh great!

I was an absolute blubbering mess, wailing in fear and so confused at what the hell was going on.  1 hour ago we were having coffee downstairs, now this!?

A few minutes later a nurse came rushing in to where I was and said Jess had been downgraded to a Category 2, which meant I was able to go in.  When I arrived, there were over 20 people in there and I panicked. I was promptly informed it was shift change over, so everyone stayed on to get our little one out. 

I sat down, embraced my wife, and we both felt so helpless with what was going on. I looked over the little curtain to see what was going on down below, and I could see our baby trying to poke through Jess’s tummy, almost like she was standing up inside – it suddenly dawned on me that this was getting more serious, and she had to come out immediately!  There was so much pressure built up in Jess’s tummy that as soon as they cut in to her, a huge fountain of blood rained over us, but ironically we laughed it off!  Upon reflection – that was such a crazy reaction, but we had no idea how to react anyway!

Our girl was out, and rushed over to the resus table, as she wasn’t breathing.  It felt like an eternity, but when I look back over the photos that were taken, the time stamps show that it was about 2-3 minutes until we heard out little angle’s first little cry (which actually sounded like a little meow!).

The pain of waiting to hear anything was the worst feeling I have ever encountered hoping and wishing that she was alive, and it was immediately replaced by the most emotionally satisfying relief I have ever felt when we heard her little meow. That was one rollercoaster I never want to jump on ever again!  But the ride was only just beginning. 

I got to do the big reveal and find out what our new little additions gender was, as we were waiting to find out until birth.  I tuned to jess and said “It’s a girl”!  to which she replied “told you!” I was able to cut the cord, which obviously had been cut to get her to the resus table, but it was still pretty cool that they allow you that small part of the normal journey. 

 I was told I should go with our new little girl into the NICU, as I may need to make some tough decisions in the first hour while Jess was in recovery. 

Off we all went, into the place where I thought I wouldn’t have to be for at least 5 weeks, but here we were.  Our little lady was connected up to everything they had, and she was still being helped to breathe by the Doctor’s thumb on the end of a tube.  She was intubated and put straight into a humidi-crib set to 82% humidity and 36deg from memory.

I couldn’t believe how small she was.  I felt sick looking at her, thinking that what I was looking at was not normal, it felt so unnatural to look at a human so small and frail, so translucent and miniature.  She was only 766g or 1 pound 11 ounces and 33cm long.  She was so fragile I couldn’t believe she was alive. I was so worried that she would die, but at the same time, I felt a sense of confidence that she would be ok, as there were so many other babies in the NICU also.  For some strange reason, it felt normalized seeing all the other babies in there. 

I was asked by a nurse what her name was, and I laughed at the questions, responding with “we thought we still had another 15 weeks until we needed a name!”.

We had a list of names on the fridge at home for both boys and girls, so it took another day to come to our final decision of Lara Sloane Bialkowski. 

Once the craziness had subsided after about 30min, I found myself sitting there, staring at my daughter.  Just me and her, and her fancy new house.  I felt so isolated and alone, but I knew she was exactly where she should be.  

I also felt so guilty that I was here, experiencing her first hour in the world, and Jess was still being stitched up, recovering from her traumatic ordeal!  I was saddened by the thought that we didn’t have our dream arrival, Jess didn’t have her water birth, I didn’t get to catch Lara, Jess didn’t get to have her bonding moment with a skin to skin cuddle post delivery, we didn’t get to have the perfect Movie scene birth.  

We had just gone through a very personally traumatic experience. And we were only 2 hours into the rest of our lives.