Ross's story

Our daughter Serena was born at 28+5 weeks following a 5-day labour. During those days, we had to quickly come to terms with the fact that we wouldn’t be able to take our daughter home for some time. An excruciatingly painful thought but given how frightening the situation we had found ourselves in was, I felt nothing but joy as she entered the world.

Even though she was whisked away to the neonatal ward in what seemed like a flash, I was lucky to be able to go and visit her relatively quickly after the birth. I met with a consultant at the side of her incubator who gave me an overview of how she was and what was happening at this point. This was very assuring as we were very fortunate that she was doing all the right things which I then relayed back to her Mum who was still recovering on the ward and would finally get the chance to see her properly later in the evening.

Sadly, due to her Mum being quite unwell after the birth and some other factors, she never got the chance to hold Serena on Day One. It may have been possible for me to do so however I wanted her Mum to have this moment and thankfully she was able to do this the next day.

I got my opportunity on Day 3. She seemed so fragile; I was very nervous. She was so small, less than the size of my forearm. In the early days of our stay, it could be quite frustrating as it wasn’t the easiest thing to have her taken out of the incubator for us to hold her. We were unsure how long and often we should be doing this. We were in a very fortunate position that Serena was completely healthy and thriving and I felt somewhat guilty at times for asking for assistance to cuddle her when there were other babies in the room who were very poorly and maybe needed more attention from the nurses.

This all changed when we were shown how to safely move her in and out of the incubator. A task that became second nature to us over the next 6 weeks or so. It is a very daunting thing to do given all the wires and tubes, but I would encourage any parents who want to do this to ask to be given the opportunity.

I felt like I had two roles during this time. Trying to become a father to a daughter that, I couldn’t do a lot for at this point in her life. I tried to be as hands-on as I could, taking turns with her mum to change nappies and eventually feed her by syringe. My second role was just as important, and this was trying to help a new Mum who was having to leave her baby every day, to deal with this torturous separation.

We were lucky that we had very few setbacks along the way but each day was still very difficult to manage. We quickly scheduled a routine which we stuck to for the most part that allowed us to check all the boxes we could in terms of Serena’s care, whilst still spending as much time with her as we could without pushing ourselves to breaking point.

The more time we spent there, the better we got to know the staff and the better they got to know us and what we were capable of doing to help Serena factor this into her daily care. Close communication between ourselves and the staff was vital as we were clinging on to anything that we could to help and on the very few instances where there was a breakdown in this and something had been done that we had planned to do on our arrival that day, this was very difficult to deal with due to limited things you can do for your baby in that situation to make you feel like a parent to them.

Although this was not the path any of us would have chosen, this was the journey we had been sent on and I genuinely believe the neo-natal experience put us in great stead to eventually take our baby home. I had never changed a nappy before and having become a self-proclaimed expert in doing this whilst our baby was in an incubator, I felt there was nothing I couldn’t do when we brought her home!

The care we received on the ward was amazing and any challenges we faced were often down to resources than anything else.

19 months on and our daughter is the most amazing human being she has two parents who feel so blessed to have her in their lives.