how to survive a neonatal stay
Izzie, sling library volunteer and mum of 3, tells us how she survived 2 stays in the neonatal unit with her three children
We made it through the neonatal unit... twice.
I have three amazing children, my eldest, who will be two in July and my four month old twins. When Charlie decided to make an appearance, he was six weeks early, my twins, Hazel and Theo were seven weeks early. Both times, we had to go to the neonatal unit, which felt like the longest time in my little babies' lives, although in retrospect, we were so lucky, five weeks in total, for three healthy, happy children is nothing at all. When my waters broke at 34 weeks with Charlie, a decision was taken that the best course of action was to bring him into the world early. He was born at 10.59am and after a fleeting cuddle, he was whisked off to the neonatal unit, I was taken to recovery. We didn't get to see each other again until almost 8pm. After that it was hard to pry me away from his incubator and when I was discharged a couple of days later, going home without my new baby was completely heart breaking.
We spent the longest two weeks together in the neonatal unit, my cousin would drop me off before 8am and my partner would take me home around 9pm. Everything within that time frame became routine. Temperature. Nappy change. Feed. Express. Repeat.
I must admit, I was a bit of a wreck during this time, as amazing as my new baby was, I had been suffering from anxiety throughout my pregnancy. A manifestation of this was uncontrollable tears, coupled with hormones meant crying was pretty regular. There was one day in particular where I had been encouraging Charlie to breastfeed, several days in, he still wasn't getting it. I remember thinking, if we don't figure this out, he's never coming home. That was it, I was inconsolable, irrational though that thought was, and had leave for the day.. That was my pressure cooker moment. He figured out breastfeeding with a nipple shield two days later and we were free to leave
Fast forward eighteen months, I was 33 weeks pregnant with the twins, Charlie was asleep upstairs and we were having a quiet night in on the sofa. I mentioned in passing to my partner that I thought I was having Braxton Hicks contractions.
He noted that they were pretty regular, but I went to bed as normal. The next morning, that's when I realised they were contractions, so we made our way to the hospital, bag already packed due to our previous experience. After a full day and most of the night in labour my twins were born by emergency c section at 4 am
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