Just a stream of consciousness...

I remember a single tear, cold on a face that felt numb. A single tear that was equally pure joy and a silent appeal for all the things I couldn't have snaking down my face, a tear that sprung to life as you took your first breath and bellowed. I was told not to expect you to cry, you were too small, too unprepared for the outside world. But you cried and in your first picture not even an hour later you stared defiant at the camera. A stubbornness that hasn't left you yet.

Your birth wasn't the one I expected to have, over seven weeks early and free from any of the pains that a women is supposed to know when she has a child, there was no right of passage for me. I didn't earn the right to hold you, wet and slippery and new from the safety of my body. But I got you anyway and you got me, we were both alive and had time to get used to being a family in the month it took you to be ready to come home. That was the moment, you so small in your car-seat, that I became your Mum, not just a Mother.

It's taken you a year to get that word out, Mama, and even now I'm sure you don't know what it means, let alone the amazing bubble of warmth it creates in my chest when you say it. Those last few weeks of carrying you, the isolation of being in hospital and the unknown that came with each new bit of doctor's advice and each new midwife left scars. Not seeing you for a day after you were born, knowing you were just doors down the corridor hurt so much. But, my amazing little man you heal me, you show me joy and I am so grateful for you.

It's you that has made me strong enough to try the crazy ride that is pregnancy again. To complete our little family and give you a companion, someone to knock your edges off and share life with you. Now as I grow your little brother inside me I worry what you will think of him, will you feel I have ousted you, feel replaced and jealous? Will I have to go into hospital and leave you with your Daddy and other people who love you, but aren't me, for weeks. Stupid questions, because we will both do what has to be done. That's just the way of things.

So many hopes and plans for a future that's surging forward, so many fears and doubts that nip around my ankles on cold autumn mornings. We'll get through Winter, it may get cold and lonely but the sun will still shine and the days will get longer again. I hold onto your joyful smile like a talisman. You, your Dad and your little brother, my little tribe, my biggest pride. I can do anything for you.

I just need to try to forget those feelings, on that operating table, I need to let go of being powerless and vulnerable. There's nothing to be afraid of anymore, no monster under the cupboard – I'll fight them all away for you and you'll never know how you do the same for me.

My Little Tiger Cub

The Fear

“And so all the trees forgot to wake

They were dropping all their leaves

On the ground below them

But here

Closer every year

So near

The fear is coming clear

My dear

The fear is here”

  -The Fear, Travis

Five months, I have carried this new life inside me since the Jubilee weekend and yet it feels no closer to me than the halcyon memories of a summer bursting with national pride. I feel him move inside me, the rolling tide of him surging against the confines of my womb, already testing boundaries and yet I am finding it hard to feel for him, to feel anything past the lump of fear that grows as quickly as he does.

Him, he, my son, my brave new future with two young boys. A life created in love and passion relegated for now to the dark depths within the rolling flesh of my stomach. This tiny life, at around a pound in weight has me terrified. Not just for how I will manage with two children, but for how the next few months will go. Will I fail him like I did his brother, will my body betray us.

Will I spend hours and hours, days and days laid strapped to a monitor, listening for every little hitch in his heartbeat, a heartbeat that now runs fierce and fast, full of life. Will I await for other people, people more knowledgeable than I to decide our fate, to tell me when my body is no longer able to support us. My body replaced by a plastic box, tubes not gritty, null placenta. My maternal need no longer able to surround and support him, will he be an alien in a spaceship so distant from me.

So many worries, they fall like the golden, burning autumn leaves. I nurse them in the glooming fog, nurture them in the dampening mulch. These fears are the cold coming winter, so against the warmth of my fecund body, yet I grow them as I do my son. I cling to the fear, the worry is something familiar, something I have some control over when everything else is waiting. 

Born Too Soon

Today the WHO report ‘Born Too Soon: The Global Action Report on Preterm Birth’ has been released, it's a huge joint effort by international agencies and highlights the disparity of survival for premature babies born anywhere other than the shiny bright hospitals of the first world countries. Countries like the one I am lucky to be in. It aims to reduce the mortality rates for babies born too early.

I have a particular interest in this report becase eight months ago I developed pre-eclampsia any my baby was born by caesarian section 7 weeks early at 3lb 6oz. My son had received corticosteroids to develop his lungs before birth, he was kept warm in a sterile incubator, fed through a drip at first and then an ng tube, carefully monitored, he was cared for and called precious by nurses and doctors who had the time, money and space to look after him and now I have a happy, healthy, cheeky baby boy. 

 As you read about my son I'd like you to think about the 255 babies born the same minute as him (rough figure from 2007). Of those 255 babies around 25 would have been premature. The majority would have been born in the third world, with little help or support, they would have been born to a mother who loved them, just as much as I love my son. But her love alone wouldn't have been enough. In about half those cases her baby, if born at 33 weeks like mine, would have died because of where she lived. This isn't fair. Every baby deserves an equal chance.

Introducing Isaac - The NICU Days

Isaac is 8 months old, he has 6 teeth and a strong bite, he's learning to crawl and is obsessed with cables and television remotes. Today, as part of a response to this report, I want to introduce you my little man, Isaac. This morning I worry about how to pry dried weetabix off his hi-chair (and face) and if he should be chewing on that cushion. These are such small, everyday worries,not all families are this lucky.

Isaac was born on August 27th 2011, a Saturday afternoon that I remember very little of. I'd been in hospital for a week already, and the consultant decided that it was time for him to born. She didn't want to wait for a tipping point, for an emergency, we were both stable and she wanted us to stay that way. I remember shaking a lot after they'd got the spinal in, it was almost an out of body experience, but the theatre staff were all so fantastic and my husband distracted me from the oddness of it all by playing 20 questions. I remember laughing at him, because I'd asked if the animal was found in England and he's said yes. It wasn't, it was a Beaver.

There was a moment of stillness in me as my son was born, I found out later it was 3.56pm, it doesn't feel like the word born fits still, emerged perhaps...But the fact remains that my tiny, wrinkled boy let out a cry, and then another reedy but full of life. I was allowed a glimpse over the curtain at his little face, swathed in blue, I wish I'd had a camera, and a free hand! He was so small and he sounded like a kitten. He was breathing on his own, and there wasn't the panicked rush I was warned could happen.

The first real glance of him was the picture above, the unit takes them for women in situations like mine and for 18 hours - a whole evening, night and morning after it was all I could cling to. He didn't seem real, I still felt pregnant, I could still feel him kick. I don't think anything, not even being able to visit the unit before hand (thanks to Pauline who leads the wonderful Kingston Hospital's Born To Soon ) prepared me for seeing my little spaceman in his rocket ship. I was led past the blue room which I knew was low dependency, the departure lounge where babies who are nearly ready to go home grow and learn to feed. Past the pink unit, which was intensive care, the scary place where the most tiny, ill and fragile babies were cocooned and taken in my wheelchair to high dependency care, the green room.

He was in the green room for 8 days, those were the really isolating days, I felt like I was in my own bubble. Just like he was in his, I was scared of my own son, scared of hurting him, of the wires attached to him, of his tiny limbs and bony little bum. I learnt to care for him, to change his tiny nappies and wash him. I learnt to feed him and I got to know him and realised how proud of him I was, how much I loved him and his quiet alertness, he didn't make a fuss like the other babies. He was the baby turtle from Finding Nemo, my little Squirt. From the outset he gained weight, 30grams, then 90grams...Slow, steady gains. My tiny little boy, who became Isaac on day 3 of his life, was showing me how to live - how to go with the flow, to just worry about the things that mattered.

Our journey in NICU was mostly filled with highs, with growth and success, from incubator to heated cot within a week, then into a normal cot in another week. I was still struggling to come to terms with it, and for the first 8 days I was still a patient as they tried to get my blood pressure under control. I loved the night most, being able to sit quietly without the rush. In those quiet moment I could watch him sleep, could recognise him from the baby in my scan photo, I grew to love him for what he was, not for the baby I'd been expecting in 7 weeks, Trying to accept my new normal and my perfect baby son.

Some days I was really upset, at silly things - the nurse not waiting for me to carry out one of his cares, because I was delayed by needing a blood test was one of the silly moments that nearly overwhelmed me. The chance to touch him, to hold him came with those cares and whilst it wasn't said, we were discouraged from fussing with the babies too much. I know why, I understand, but it always hurt a little, to sit there and just watch them. I read to him, I sang to him and I watched each breath, trying not the watch the monitors but they became the back-beat to our first weeks together.

We struggled to breast feed, neither of us got the hang of it and the bottle tired him out less. I look back and wondered if I should have fought this more...I ended up expressing for three months before I couldn't any more and will always have a regret that I didn't get more support in the unit, but it's a small regret that pales into the gratitude for the hours of meaningless conversation and support I got from the nurses, and a few of the team that I particularly bonded with. I wish I'd felt more in control, more able to be his advocate, parents were discouraged from being there for doctors rounds, and I think I only spoke to one doctor the entire time we were there. I suppose it's because everything went so well, but even so I didn' t know his care plan, I didn't know about Tommy's or Bliss, I felt voiceless and I didn't know what expectations to have.

Our journey was swift, compared to many other parents I got to know and I learnt to be humble with my pride, to always appreciate it a little more. To thank god in amongst my prayers. Going home happened rather quickly, on the Monday the little man couldn't manage to drink all his bottles without falling asleep, he was still having 1 out of 3 as a tube feed (where they syringe milk down the nasal gastric tube in his nose) but by the Wednesday the tube was gone and he managed every feed for 24 hours...That was it, the last tick box, suddenly life was scary again. I roomed in on Wednesday September 10th 2011 and then on the 11th the routine and security of the NICU was gone, and it was just me, my husband and an institutionalised baby who was still a tiny 4lb 4oz. In the next post I'll talk about what happened next.

Coming Home

Not as brave as you were at the start

"But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really f**ked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear?
Didn't I, my dear"  

- Mumford and Sons, Little Lion Man

Let me start this by stating that I'm fine, on a day to day level, it's all going okay. Life has settled into some sort of routine and my penchant for procrastination hasn't gotten me into too many arguments. This isn't a whine, it's a vent. I just needed to get out some of the stuff I haven't been able to admit.

I'm a bit more broken than I used to be. I've always had more chipped mugs than skeletons in my closet, but now I'm having to glue the handles back on to most of them too. Having a premature baby shook all of them, all the vulnerable things I'd spent years bolstering with flour paste, sticky back plastic and bubble-wrap. Shook them hard that they fractured, little cracks that weakened, made them fragile but from the outside they still look whole.

My son escaped the Mother-ship out of the emergency exit hatch, I didn't give birth to him, he was extracted by a crack surgical SWAT team. My womb was holding him hostage and slowly withdrawing life support, my cervic hostile to the mere idea of induction and so he had to be rescued. I failed him, I failed to nurture him, I even failed to get him into the school year he was supposed to be in.

He was born on August 27th 2011, I had developed pre-eclampsia with HELLP syndrome and he was smaller than he should have been. I swing wildly between resenting them carving him out of me when everything was stable and being so grateful we didn't wait for a tipping point. Because we're both okay now. Honest.

Most days Sprocket himself is the glue that I can use to hold it all together, he's a constant amazement. Confounding, clever and a joy to be around. Of course he's tiring, he's 8 months old, he's trying to do so many things at once, of course there are moments I could cry...Like 4am, when he's determined to be awake and teething and crying all at once. He makes everything better, the balm on wounds. He makes me want to be a better mum, a better person. I don't want to fail him again.

I need to learn how to keep a post to a theme, to a chronology...But for now, i just needed to get that out of my system.

A work in progress

The moment before you were born,
was free climbing, parachuting, deep sea diving

All the scary things I'd never done
All the fear I had rolled into one.

The silence of that first night
was endless, paralysing, just surviving
All the lonely moments I'd had combined,
All the lost things I'd never find.

The first time I saw your face
was the man on the moon, familiar, lost in space
All the stars I'd ever wished on,
All the hopeful moments just begun.

Avoiding the Obvious

I started this post with every intention of telling my birth story and talking about my August 2011, the month I fell down the rabbit hole into the dark wonderland of being a Mum to a premature baby.  There's no logical reason for my current reticence to write it down, there's no sad ending, we're so blessed with Sprocket. He's doing well and is hitting all the milestones we could have hoped for in a 7 month old (and some we didn't, like cutting 4 teeth at once). 

I think about it all the time, I look down at the face of my son and feel the now familiar pain of love. The sharp tug of fear and wonder in the centre of my body, bouyant joy weighted by the shadowy clouds of yesterdays storm.  A heavy love, with cement boots of guilt and failure that plagues so many parents, not just to those with babies born early. 

It was an ivy-love that grew up quietly until it had a strangle hold. Not the tidal wave I was expecting, there was already a tsunami of fear and uncertainty, my body shaking like a leaf even as I fought to smile and show the world I was fine. His face only glimpsed over an drape for a blinking second, smeared with my blood and undecipherable. 

I didn't see him again for almost 24 hours, save for the four pictures I was given by the unit. In those pictures I recognised him for my own. Now I want to be able to move forward, to let go of the anchor that keeps part of me stuck vulnerable and exposed on an operating table, to unhook myself from the drip-fed routine of the NICU, the sense of alienation. I'm still stuck in limbo. 

I don't want to live in my past, to always relive the dread alongside every milestone, that's why I know I need to force my face into the mirror that this blog is supposed to be. I want to exorcise the thoughts and experiences and hold them up to the light of scrutiny so I can try to discard the unhealthy ones and hold on to all the positives, and there are so many positives.

I'll get there.

A Beginning...

I've always been a person with a lot to say, never one to be short of several words where one would do. I wrote my way through my teenage years, expressing everything in swathes of poetry and stories, articles and scrawled journal entries. So when I found out I was expecting my first baby, in February 2011, I expected the floodgates to open and words to once again pour onto paper. I wanted to keep a record for my son, so when I found it almost impossible to fill the blank screen with anything meaningful I was flabbergasted.

The blog has been a seed in my head for months now, right from the time life caught me by surprise and due to my pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome, my son was born 7 weeks early and I found all the words, emotions and experiences blocked behind those firmly locked floodgates.  It's taken months to work up the courage to start and I'm, really hoping it'll give me the encouragement I need to find words again. To find my voice as a wife and mother not an emo-filled teenage. 

Why August Ever After? Well, just because that's how it feels. Everything happened in August 2011, I got married, we bought our first house - a real 1930's project and my little boy was born. In August life as I knew it stopped existing for 6 weeks, as I was hospitalised instead of honeymooning, and then the wait for Sprocket (what I will call my son here) to be strong enough to come home. After those six weeks I had to rediscover what life meant and what was important to me...I've been trying to work out my own happily ever after and I hope you'll enjoy sharing my not-so-fairytale with me.