When she was born, they wrapped her up and they brought over to me quickly just to sort of touch her, and they said, Can youou can hear that she’s grunting a bit, which means that struggling to breathe a bit. So we need to take her down. So they took her down. [Husband] stayed with me for a bit while they sewed me up. And then I went back into the labour ward and he, the midwife then took him down to special care with [daughter].

And she was doing fine initially, and at 34 weeks they didn’t think that she would necessarily have that much trouble breathing. I’d had the steroid injections the first time I came in, and then I think at 32 weeks I’d had all the steroids to try and mature her lungs and on the, I’d been having growth scans every two weeks.

They thought she was quite a healthy weight soI wasn’t, which again sounds a bit naïve that worried about how she was going to be. I thoughtand I think because they’d also taken us down to show us special care very early on and when we went on there had been a baby that had been born. She was the exact same gestational age, but she’d already been born at 26 weeks and so her parents very kindly gave us permission to have a look at her. She happened to have the same name as our elder daughter, which sort of freaked us out a bit, but so we’d seen what a 26 weeker looked like. And then, they showed us a 32 and there was such a massive difference. And they kept re-iterating every, you know, every day makes a difference at this age. So, I sort of thought we were going to be fine really. We were fine ultimately, but she had a few more problems breathing than they had envisaged her. But it, it turned out to be the exact right time, because of the antibodies that I have had also started attacking her red blood cells. So she needed to come out then, regardless really of, of the placenta issue sonbsp;

He was in there for another seven days. He went back into Nursery 3. And he was fine, he’s come home. Nothing until he was about six month old and then I’ve noticed, like a really noisy breathing when he breathes. it’s like the only way to describe it is a grown man snoring really loud. People do look at you in the street and they must think, why she’s got that baby out. It sounds as though he’s got a chest infection.

He was referred to [city] Children’s Hospital. He was diagnosed with subglottic cysts which is caused through ventilation. He was operated on in December for that. He was fine for a few weeks. He’s just recently over the last three weeks the noise has come back, so he’s due to see them again in three weeks over that.

He’s nearly eighteen month old. He doesn’t walk. He doesn’t make any noises. He doesn’t Mum or Dad or nothing like that. Playtime he doesn’t, he’s still like a little baby. If you give him a toy, like a normal eighteen month old, would like probably a book would probably try and turn the pages, he just chews on it like a baby. He’s really, he doesn’t like strangers. He’s really anxious.

He’s got, as for his development, he’s really behind. He’s not really sociable. If a stranger were to come in the room and he was there, he would scream. You can’t take him shopping, you can’t take him to the [shopping] Centre or anywhere like that. He doesn’t like crowds. They think he’s slightly autistic. And he’s now being tested for problems with his liver and spleen. Something wrong with his enzymes which affect the issues to the brain. They think, they’ve tested him really for all kinds at the moment because he looks quite different to, like the other two, like, with the half Turkish, he’s really pale skin, blue eyes, blonde hair. His brothers are all dark skinned, dark hair, dark eyes. His eyes are really big. They stand out a lot. He does look, you can see when you look at him that something’s not quite right. But they are running tests, but they’re unsure at the moment of what exactly it is that’s wrong.

Okay so that’s sort of waiting to find out?

They think all that would have been caused through premature birth.

Okay and that must be really worrying?

Yes. It is yes. Because he’s eighteen month old and he’s been through so much, and all because my placenta didn’t stick in the right place. That’s what I blame it on.

And how long did he end up being in hospital before he came home?

Eleven weeks.

A few days before that, we had been to see some of the doctors in the hospital and one of the doctors who was a young doctor, she was about 30 years of age and she was talking, and she was talking about a possibility that we might have to have our baby earlier than normal. And we were like, okay that’s interesting. And she’d sort of explained to us that, she was born at 32 weeks herself and so part of me was sort of feeling, okay we’re almost up to 33 weeks now, and here’s you know, a well-educated, attractive doctor, whose obviously done really, really well for herself, she was born at 32 weeks and it hasn’t prevented her from doing anything at all. So that had actually sort of, that was in the back of my mind, thinking, okay there mustn’t be too much wrong with being born at 32/33 weeks. So there was that.

And I think we’d also had a discussion with a few other people, some friends who had had a baby earlier last year, also said that when we got past I think the 31 or 30 week mark, Ooh that’s a major milestone. I was like, Really, why is that? And they said, Most of the organs are probably formed by that stage, so I obviously remembered that when we were in there being told we were about to have a baby in a couple of hours. So I was thinking that things should be okay at being born at 32/33 weeks.

So I went in to see my baby and saw the baby for the first time. We had a nice one to one skin contact and it was the first time that my baby was picked up, but they said that they deliberately did that, they wanted me to be the first one, my family didn’t pick him up and he was absolutely gorgeous and I remember thinking, all this time it was about him, but really it was about, we didn’t know it was going to be about me, so I said, When’s my baby’s operation.

And they’re going, your baby’s exomphalos fixed itself. We tied it up into a tube ready for an operation and in a few hours it fell into its belly into the right position. We said, Then may be for the heart defect. We were told that the baby was born with an open valve. I said, When’s my baby being taken to Great Ormond Street for the hospital. They go, It’s not needed, the valve’s opened itself.

So this baby that needed major operations was fine. And you know, as soon as she said that to me, they told me, The longest you can be downstairs to see the baby was about fifteen minutes, and then you’re going to need your medicine, because the pain relief is Because I needed my medicine every ten minutes, my pump. But I couldn’t take the pump with me because I had an epidural. And I had the gas, I couldn’t carry to much with the wheelchair.

And I’m thinking, I don’t feel very well, can you take the baby, I need to go back upstairs.

And it was so nice, because they met me for the first time, yet they knew me really well. So I I mean I walked into the baby care unit. The SCBU and I remember them saying, This is Baby [Name]’s Mum. And they got up to handshake me. And they said, Hi Farkhanda. And I said, How do you know my name? And they said, We all know you. We’ve all heard your story. You’re a fighter and we’ve all heard about you, and I remember going into the baby care unit, and all the specialist staff, the nurses, all coming up just to see who I was.

And I remember the lady said to me, I looked after your baby when he was born. And I said, Could you come close to me. And she said, Yes. And I gave her a kiss, and I said, That’s thank you for being a Mum to my baby, because I said to my husband my baby’s born. He might not have a Mum and in my mind I thought you would be his Mum for his first few hours. And she started crying [laughs].

So I remember of a night time, it was like an hour trying to feed my daughter with the bottle because I thought I just can’t do breastfeed with her because she wouldn’t take it. And then I was doing an hour on the breast pump, trying to create milk for my son to try and help him, and then literally the next time round, it was like 30 mins later, I was started to feed my daughter again and it was just continual. And I just had no energy whatsoever. I was just completely exhausted. And then my son, as I say, he was rejecting the milk. So I was trying my best to try and give him something. I felt so guilty because I wasn’t producing enough for him. It was just really stressful. It was not a nice time at all.

But yes, so then I got discharged and go to come home, which was fantastic. I’ve never been so happy to see this couch in my life. And then, so that was sort of the next phase of two weeks of going in to see him. He was well the whole time, which was really, really good. He was on, he sort of had a bit of oxygen and a heated mattress. I think it was about five days after he was born, and then after that, it was essentially nothing, other than he needed to develop a sucking reflex and to be able to eat for himself. So that, that was really good that he was healthy. And so yes, so we just had the exhaustion of going to and from the hospital every day, sitting in that horrible institution kind of room all the time, and that was exhausting. And, and we also fiddled with that as to like what was the best way to work this again, you know. Because you feel like you want to be there all the time, because you’re the child’s parent, and you really want to be there and all the rest of it. But then you think, what am I doing here, you know, like he’s asleep half the time. There’s no point me standing here, watching him sleep when I need to rest. You know, I’ve physically been through a fair bit and this child’s going to come home to me, and if I’m useless when he comes home what’s the point. So yes, so we sort of I think eventually decided to kind of go in for a reasonable chunk of the day, but then come at a reasonable hour and not feel like we had to go back and stuff like that. And again, I think there were some nurses that were better about then than others. Some made you feel like, oh you’re not coming back for a night time feed, you know, and all that. Well no I’m not [laughs] I’m going to sleep while I can, thanks very much.