Delilah’s story part four

 

Hello lovelies,

This post is a little late in the day but I got there in the end, many of you have read Delilah’s story so far and if you haven’t then you can catch up on the first one here Going into labour at 24 weeks, the second one here Delilah’s Story (Part Two) And the third one here Delilah’s Story Part 3.

Most of those three posts are based in Oxford’s John Radcliffe NICU, where Delilah spent the first nine weeks of her life but then we had the big move back to our local hospital in Reading, as I mentioned in my previous post this was such an emotional move for me because I grew so attached to Acorn in Oxford and all the doctors and nurses there were so amazing and felt like family with how much care they gave our little girl and moving back to Reading was going back into the unknown it was really quite scary.

Sadly our first day (or first few hours) back in reading seemed to just bring my fears to life. Ben and I arrived at Buscot and after giving the doctors and nurses the time they needed to get everything settled in with Lilah, we then went into the red room to find out how she was doing.

But right away there was something a little off about her nurse at first I just thought she wasn’t that friendly (no biggie as long as she looked after Delilah well) but then Delilah started to cry purely because her dummy that Oxford had given her a few weeks beforehand was slightly out of reach. And this nurse just turned to Delilah and said oh well don’t be thinking you are going to get your own way here because your not and moved the dummy further away from her.

At first I just stood there in shock Delilah was still so, so tiny still at the 3 pound mark and this dummy was the first nice thing that she had, had that was her very own that didn’t cause pain and gave her that bit of comfort, of course I quickly went and gave it back to Delilah was it filled me with dread and I spent most of that day crying my eyes out.

Thankfully even though we spent a further three months almost in Buscot I never came across this nurse again (something I was very pleased about) and the rest of the doctors and nurses where amazing I couldn’t of dreamed of nicer people to look after her and make her strong enough for the outside world.

The next thing I found hard was being further away from the hospital because even though we were back in our home town it took us so much longer to get to the hospital each day, but I was so glad that Delilah got to see her brothers and Nanny more as it was that little bit easier for everyone else to get there, and Delilah got to meet her Granny Ann (Ben’s step-mum) for the first time too.

And although Delilah still had more then her fair share of hiccups along the way it was amazing watching her grow and get stronger. Although some days it still felt like we would still never get to bring her home, especially each time she had her jabs she would be fine for the first 25 hours afterwards but I could literally time it and on the 26 hour mark she would stop breathing for quite a long amount of time (one of those times was when I was giving her a feed and she nearly gave me a bloody heart attack)

 

But so many wonderful things happened once she was back in Buscot too, she had her first Bottle feed (up until this point she had only been tube fed and I was so terrified whenever it was my time to feed her as I was so worried of her stopping breathing when I was feeding her as I mentioned before I was just terrified I would do something wrong.

And I can so clearly remember the first time a nurse handed her to me just like a full term baby (until then we had only ever done kangaroo care) Thankfully my mum was in the family room and I made Ben go out and get her because as silly as it sounds I truly never thought I would get to hold her like that and I have never cried so many happy tears.

Of course we still had so many scares including when she had to go back to Oxford for eye surgery due to ROP and we didn’t know whether she would have any sight left at all even after surgery. But again thanks to some very talented doctors it worked brilliantly and her sight was saved and so that was a very short trip back. But we never even knew that she needed the surgery until the night before it happened it just very suddenly went downhill and the next thing we knew we where being told that if they didn’t do something in the next 24 hours she would be blind.

I did worry because she had to be put back onto the ventilator that they would struggle to wean her off of it again because Delilah had this thing at that point that if she had a choice she just wouldn’t bother breathing but after only a few hours back in Buscot she was back onto Cpap. Although they did have to put a cannula in her head before the trip back to oxford and that was a scary sight (although I did in the end think it looked rather like a fascinator) it’s small thought like these that kept me sane back then haha.

Do you see what I mean about the fascinator???

There where so many other scary and brilliant things that happened in Buscot but once again I think this post is long enough so maybe we could save them for another day,

 

But for now …

Thanks for reading,

Love Benita x

 

 

Delilah’s Story Part 3

Hi lovelies,

I’m continuing on with little Lilah’s Story today and if you haven’t read the first and second parts you can find them here Going into labour at 24 weeks and here Delilah’s Story (Part Two). 

When I wrote the second part of her story I really thought I would be able to cover all of her Oxford stay, but I think I forgot just how much went on there so once again this is probably going to be a long one so grab that coffee and take a seat.

(one more thing as I said last time I really struggle to remember the order that everything happened in so please bear with me)

It took six long weeks and many, many attempts  for the doctors and nurse’s to be able to get Delilah off of the ventilator and onto Cpap and their were many times that it felt like it may never happen. But on the last attempt thanks to a very special nurse basically making sure no one went near Delilah unnecessarily, she done it and amazingly it worked.

But one conversation that stands out to me from this time happened one day when I was sat having some cuddle time with my little girl. One of the Doctors that had been a part of the transport team from Reading to Oxford came over after he had been on holiday for about a week and he couldn’t believe that she was finally off of the ventilator and said that if he was being very honest he really didn’t think she would be able to before he went on holiday, I think a lot of the doctors and nurses were as proud of Lilah for doing it as Ben and I were. Like most thing’s this was just another thing that Delilah wanted to do when she wanted to but its scary to think of what could have happened had the situation gone a little differently.

Another memory that stands out in my head happened on a day that my mum came over for a visit and because visiting hours are only a few hours long apart from parents and siblings we went into Headington which was just down the road from the hospital for a coffee. And as we walked past someone pushing their baby in a pushchair and my mum asked if I was okay. And the thing is that didn’t actually affect me. Yet When I had my miscarriage with Jaime I can so clearly remember being sat in Pret A Manger next to a mum feeding her baby and I literally burst into tears because it absolutely broke my heart that I would never be able to do that with my baby, But this time My baby was just a few feet away fast asleep. And although it was nothing like I thought parenthood would be and I knew she had a lot of fighting to do. Only she was my baby and as long as she was breathing (or at least trying too) I was okay. I mean if she was being so strong the least I could do was be strong for her.

But saying all of that, there did come a point that I just wanted to scream that I was a mum especially as we hit her actual due date and were still nowhere near getting her home.

Then there was the time one of my best friends Kim came to see her for the first time, it was an exciting day for me as apart from my mum coming over and the boy’s as often as possible no one else had ever seen her.

But I should have known that the day would never go to plan as when Kim called me to say she was in the carpark I went to lock the back door of the house we were staying in and promptly fell off the back step and straight on my face haha, always the start of a good day that!

But I still went over to the hospital and met Kim who was also rather excited about meeting Delilah for the first time. we headed into Acorn and straight away something was wrong as soon as I looked at Delilah she was Blue (never a good sign) and very quickly nurses started working to bring her back, all this time Kim (bless her) smiled and said oh she’s beautiful look at her changing colour (Only Kim haha) and the nurse just looked at me as if to say let’s not freak her out and lets just pretend everything is absolutely fine

So there I was chatting away like its no big deal that my daughter is not breathing whilst inside I’m panicking because I could see the look’s on the nurses faces. Bar that moment it was a lovely day and I was so glad I could finally be a normal (ish) mum that get’s to show her friend her baby.

We had the will they won’t they thing going on for awhile with the big move back to Reading and honestly again deep down it was something I never thought would happen but then one morning after nine weeks in Oxford,  when we went in everything was ready for her to be transferred back and we were told to go and get our bags! It was just as scary for me as when Delilah was first born because it was learning the way Buscot worked and meeting all new doctors and nurses which I will write about in the end part of this story which if I can I will put up on Thursday so keep an eye out for that, but for now I hope you enjoyed my extra post this week.

Thanks for reading,

Love Benita x

32 Random Questions

Hi Lovelies,

After Monday’s really rather serious post all about Delilah’s start to life in Oxford’s NICU unit (and if you haven’t read that yet the link is here Delilah’s Story (Part Two) I thought I would write something a little more light-hearted today. And I found this fun looking Tag (it may be for Youtube but I’m sure we can make it work for blog’s too) over on Kat’s blog (which you can find Here) 

Not only is Kat’s blog brilliant she also has a YouTube channel check it out Here (look at me being all linky today haha) I first found her on a Marie Bits and clips video and she is very funny.

Anyway on with the questions before I make this post far more of a ramble then it should be.

1. Do you sleep with your closet doors open or closed?

I live on a boat and have no closet’s and I think it may be a tiny bit weird if I opened my draws to sleep haha.

2. Do you take shampoo and conditioner bottles from hotels?

Of course 😉 you have to don’t you it’s like the law or something, but I wouldn’t say I’m quite as bad as Ross from friends just yet!

3. Do you sleep with your sheets tucked in or out?

Out!

4. Have you ever stolen a street sign?

No but I kinda wished I had, you just know there would be a good story behind it.

5. Do you cut out coupons and never use them?

Not so much on cutting them out but Ben is always getting vouchers/coupons from Sainsburys and such and I always forget to use them if I go shopping on my own (much to the annoyance of Ben haha)

6. Would you rather be attacked by a big bear or a swarm of bee’s?

When I was a kid I can remember being stood at our back door in fits of laughter as my dad was chassed down our garden by a swarm of bee’s (I was such a nice daughter haha) So I think its only right that I get paid back and choose bee’s (I’m pretty sure Delilah and Arabella would laugh at me in that situation) Plus bear’s are scary so no thank you.

7. Do you always smile for pictures?

I think so! it’s kind of automatic isn’t it?

8. Do you ever count your steps when you walk?

No but I probably should.

9. Have you ever peed in the woods?

Nope!

10. Do you still watch cartoons?

No I never really even liked them as a kid I much more enjoyed the home improvement programs (hello changing room’s) but now with two little girls my life is pretty much a loop of annoying children’s song’s on YouTube that get stuck in your head long after the Girl’s are in bed.

11. where would you bury hidden treasure if you had some?

Ooh good question, hmm I think the best way for me to hide something would be to let Delilah play with it haha, the only problem would then be I would have no idea where it was either. otherwise I would have to take my mother’s suggestion and say under the floor boards.

12. What do you drink with dinner?

Totally depends but hopefully wine haha.

13. What do you dip a chicken nugget in?

Either sweet and sour sauce or curry sauce so not a fan of tomato sauce.

14. what movies could you watch over and over and still love?

Devil wears Prada, Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve got mail. All total classics.

15. Where you ever a girl scout?

Nope.

16. Would you ever pose or strip nude in a magazine?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA … No!

17. Can you change the oil in your car?

I don’t drive yet so no.

18. Have you ever gotten a speeding ticket?

Same answer as above.

19. Afraid of heights?

Nope not really.

20. Do you sing in the car?

Of course something I’m sure everyone around me is really pleased about.

21. Is Christmas stressful?

Yes! I used to love Christmas and still do in the sense that it’s magical watching the kid’s with the lights, elf on the shelf and everything like that but I also feel that we put so much pressure on ourselves as parents that it’s just full of trying to do everything right and make sure everyone is happy, now I am much more of a new years eve girl.

22. Occupations you wanted to be when you were a kid?

I always wanted to be an author which I think is why I try and do Nanowrimo each year (where you write fifty thousand words of your novel in November) and I actually won this year which I was pretty pleased about. And I think it’s the reason that I love blogging so much now.

23. Do you believe in ghosts?

Yes my boat is full of them for a start and I love everything supernatural and one of the thing’s that I really want to do this year is visit as many haunted places as I can. So if you know of anywhere haunted in the Reading, Berkshire area please let me know.

24. The first concert you ever went to?

Hmm never really ever been to one.

25. Walmart, Target or Kmart?

I’ve never been to any of them as I live in the UK but from watching vlogs I would love to go to a Target one day.

26. Nike or Adidas?

Neither.

27. can you curl your tongue?

Yep.

28. Have you ever cried because you were so happy?

Yes so many times but never more then when Delilah and Arabella came home from hospital (both had very different stories) but I cried just as much with both.

29. The last concert you saw?

Again I’ve never seen one.

30. Can you swim well?

The last time I really tried was at school many moon’s ago so probably not (great for boat life haha)

31. can you knit or crochet?

No neither I really don’t have the patience for it sadly as I would love to. But my mum and sister are brilliant at it.

32. Are you a dog or a cat person?

Years ago I would have gone with dog, but these days I’m totally a cat person (my dream has come true haha) I would love to have a cat someday when the girls are a little older.

And that’s it all 32 questions, I hope you enjoyed and remember to check out Kat’s blog and YouTube. and why not answer these questions yourself? I would love to read them so be sure to let me know. But for now …

Thanks for reading.

Love Benita x

 

Delilah’s Story (Part Two)

Hello lovelies,

Today’s post is going to be a long one so grab a cup of tea or a glass of wine (and snacks you will need snacks) and lets get settled in.

I mentioned in a previous post Going into labour at 24 weeks (which you can read Here) that I would follow up with more details about Delilah’s stay in hospital. And because she had such a long stay (a couple of days off of five months) I think this still might take me a couple of blog posts to write it all. And because she is now a very cheeky two and a half year old I am not going to remember everything that happened in the right order, so I hope you will bear with me.

The best way that I could think to do this was to go back over our time in Oxford in this post as, as I had also mentioned before Delilah got transferred there from Reading at just a few hours old.

So lets start at the very beginning Ben and I were sat in the Red room at Buscot in Reading waiting for them to move her across, the things that stand out to me about this time now looking back is watching her she was only about an hour and a half old at this point and was the most beautiful little thing I had ever seen all wrapped up in her sandwich bag in her comfy incubator, She weighed 1 lb 6 Oz’s and I was totally in love but scared to death.

I also can so vividly remember Delilah’s first ever nurse in reading coming over to us from the main desk in the room and asking me how to spell Delilah’s name (I could vaguely overhear a few people discussing whether it was with or without a H on the end) And this nurse being really happy that she had guessed right. I also remember the Ambulance coming to collect her and one of the paramedic’s was called Reg which is my granddads name and I felt like that was a sign he was looking over her (My granddad sadly passed away when I was 8) And paramedic Reg offered to make me and Ben a cup of tea whilst we waited which in that scary moment we knew at the very best we wouldn’t be seeing our daughter for a few hours was the sweetest thing anyone has ever done.

So at almost 12 PM Delilah left for her trip to Oxford, Ben and I had to go back to the ward and wait for me to be transferred too. It was the longest wait of our lives and they nearly didn’t want to move me but thankfully a lovely but slightly cross Irish Midwife fought my case for me and we where finally on our way to our baby girl at 8 pm that night. albeit with two very grumpy paramedic’s that lets just say weren’t very happy because it was nearly the end of their shift. Even so once I was booked in at Oxford I couldn’t wait to go and see my baby but I was also terrified of what I was going to find what if something had happened to her but they just didn’t want to tell me over the phone? What if she had forgotten me in those eight hours or what if she thought I had abandoned her, so many thing’s where running around my head.

But as we walked into Acorn my heart felt like it was going to burst as Delilah’s new nurse explained how she had been and what each machine, button, number and beep meant. And she finished with the sentence and don’t panic unless you see us panic and those words stayed in my head for the rest of our Nicu stay. They helped me (kind of) keep it together when to begin with I could quite easily have dropped every time I heard a beep.

The next moment that really stands out to me even today is the next morning at doctors round was one of the consultants telling us to just focus on that moment don’t even look a second into the future because everything can change in that second. I don’t think any parent could forget those words and I know all too well how quickly things can change, I’ve seen it too many times.

From this point onwards nothing is going to be in order because it has just turned into one massive blur.

At five days old I got to have my first cuddle with my little girl and I had heard of so many parents not being able to hold their baby for months so I never actually considered being able to hold her (which I know might sound a bit silly) until one day when we walked in and her nurse smiled and said do you want a cuddle today? Yes, yes I did but I was so scared that I would do something wrong. But luckily even though I was told she might only manage five minutes she kept all of her sats up for a whole hour and that was the best hour of my life. Ben bless him wasn’t quite as lucky and had to wait two weeks for his first cuddle and then she decided to keep him on his toes and set off all of her alarms meaning he then waited until she was a month old when I had to kind of trick him when he came in from work one day and the nurse and I just said oh sit down and the next thing he knew wires where being tapped up and she was safely snuggled on his chest (that’s the picture above) And doesn’t it just make the best picture ever!

I can’t remember how old she was when the boy’s (my step-son’s Josh and Jake) came to met her for the first time maybe four or five days, and Ben had gone back to Reading to get them but whilst he was gone Delilah’s longline needed changing something that I think normally takes about half an hour only they couldn’t get it in and a couple of hours later when Ben and the boys got there it still wasn’t done but thankfully they let them pop in and see her although it was basically just a peek at her. then a few days later we tried again and thankfully it went perfectly and her nurse that day took this lovely picture of us all, I was so pleased because I really thought we would never get to have a picture of us all together.

I did worry about how the Boy’s would feel seeing her because I knew how scary a situation it was but they where utterly brilliant and Josh straight away wanted to hold her (he had to wait a couple more months) but I could see how worried Jake was (even though he of course doesn’t like to show it) but they both loved their sister to bits and that just make’s my heart happy (and today Delilah has them both wrapped around her still quite tiny fingers haha)

there where awful moments when you watched parents lose their little ones that had been doing so great just a few moments before. That was the scariest and most heart breaking thing of all, you realised then just how much the whole thing was out of your control. One night when Ben was on a night shift I went to walk over to the hospital from the room we where staying in and one of the other mum’s walked with me (I was quite excited because this was one of the first mum’s that I had really spoken too) and we chatted about our little ones and she showed me a shortcut to the hospital. It was good to hear her experience because she had been there a lot longer then us. And then a few hours later I met ben from the bus and we went to see Lilah together but straight away something was wrong the partner of the woman I walked in with earlier walked past us in tears.

The next morning we found out they had lost their baby. I didn’t dare look away from Lilah that day I was heartbroken for those parents and again I know this may sound silly but I also wondered if it was anything to do with me (as I said this was the first mum I had really spoken too) what if I had bought them bad luck or something. it’s odd how your mind works in that situation and then a few days later another baby lost its life and again one that had been there so much longer then Delilah and I panicked. As sad as I was for these parents and really I was no words can explain it, my head was also screaming at me that bad things happen in threes. And what if we were next? What if we lost Delilah. I think all of this has also made me love her even more then I thought possible and I never take her for granted. there also isn’t a day that I don’t think about those beautiful babies.

One morning I had just woken up and ben was on a early shift at work, when my phone rang, it was one of the doctors who told me they where just going to do a lumbar puncture to rule out her having meningitis. My head started to spin, I can’t even remember the reason they thought she might have it all I can remember is throwing my clothes on and running over to the hospital as fast as I possibly could whilst phoning Ben to let him know what was going on.

By the time I reached the hospital not even ten minutes later I actually thought I was just going to pass out. and I can see myself now just saying to her nurse that morning Is she okay? How is she? Is she okay about ten times.

And this lovely Irish nurse just started chatting and saying how big she had gotten and telling me how lovely she was (Delilah hadn’t had this nurse in about two weeks so she had changed a lot) but my heart was hammering and I managed to mumble something about Meningitis and a Lumbar puncture only to have this nurse smile and go oh its fine she hasn’t as calm as anything it’s just a precaution and although of course I was still very worried, that nurse set my world straight again and I somehow didn’t panic that by the time Ben got there a couple of hours later he was in a state of panic just like I had been and looked at me like I had lost the plot when I said everything was fine.

There was a very lot of high fives and two very relived parents that night at doctors round as her tests came back negative.

As you can probably tell a hell of a lot happened in those nine weeks and this is only a few our day’s where like a rollercoaster one second you where happy that she had gained five grams and the next wondering if she would be here in the morning.

I feel like I have rambled on enough for one post so I shall explain more another day but for now,

Thanks for reading.

Love Benita x

Goodbye Oxford (kind of)

Hello lovelies,

Today was very random and I was actually going to write a post all about my goal’s for 2018 but then Ben and I decided to go for a little trip back to Oxford.

Although Delilah was born in Reading because she was so premature (she was born at 24+1 weeks) she was very quickly rushed to The John Radcliffe Hospital at only a few hours old because they can deal with tiny babies and she stayed there for just over nine weeks (when she was transferred back to Reading for a further three months) but in those nine weeks our whole live’s changed and I for one became a entirely different person.

It was a time where doctors and nurses told us not even to look a minute into the future because no one knew if Delilah would live that long, and although that feels really weird to write now its strange how fast you adjust to that life (as I’m sure any parent that has been on a Nicu or Scbu will tell you) You learn to deal with it and you learn to find a way to cope.

One of my biggest memories from being at oxford was when Delilah was about four or five weeks old, it was the evening doctors round and Ben and I where sat there listening to one of the Doctors say about what a good day she was having and literally as he was half way through saying that sentence Delilah’s Sats all dropped and she stopped breathing cue my heart stopping for those few seconds but the thing was she done this all the time and all those doctors and nurses quickly worked to get her back which thankfully worked and she was fine. But why that memory stays in my head was everyone’s reaction to it, everyone laughed and said how that was just like her to make herself known as the doctor was saying what a good day she had, had. She knew how to keep us all on our toes but also by them smiling and laughing in that moment it kept two parents that could have easily burst into tears calm and able to laugh too that our daughter was such a little character.

But as well as spending so much time with Delilah on Acorn (one of the ward names) it was also spending so much time in the hallways waiting for news, it was me waiting in the café at near one in the morning waiting for Ben to get back from his nightshift so that he could see her for the first time since early that morning. It was having a chat with the receptionist every morning when I went in and she would ask how Delilah was doing and actually made me feel like a mother when I was trying not to look at all the other mums and dads walking past me with there little babies in their car seats all ready to take home.

And it was the amazing charity SSNAP that made it possible for us to stay in a house (the one in the picture) a few minutes walk away from the hospital the entire time Delilah was there. It was the walk to and from that house multiple times a day so that I could pump or just walking around to clear our heads sometimes .

Oxford is all of these things to me and I feel like it is a massive part of who I am today. So going back today with our two beautiful daughters and showing Delilah all the parts of our lives there that she never got to see was lovely and as we entered the carpark I looked up at the building and felt my head spin with all of our memories there, good and bad and I was nervous because although I did end up being admitted there for awhile when I was pregnant with Arabella (because they thought she was going to be super early too) It was the first time we have been brave enough to take Delilah back there since she was a patient. It was weird walking along the corridors being able to look at her beautiful face and we are so lucky to have her. There where so many times when I thought we would never be able to do that.

And so going back and saying a little hello to a few nurses felt like a weight lifted. I felt like I was saying goodbye to that time In our lives and now its the start of a whole new chapter for us.

I know there may be times when we have to go back to the JR for appointments but I felt like Delilah, Ben and I all got to say a proper goodbye to Acorn and Blossom (fun little fact the reason we chose Blossom as a middle name was because it was apart of our story starting out as being Delilah’s parents)

Sorry if this was all a bit of a ramble but I do hope you enjoyed reading and I shall see you next time but for now,

Thanks for reading.

Love Benita x

Going into labour at 24 weeks

 

Hello lovelies,

I have been wanting to write this post for quite a while now but a part of me has also been scared to let myself relive it all step by step. Having my daughter was one of the best days of my life but I would also be telling a lie if I didn’t admit it was also one of the most terrifying.

My little girl is now just over ten months and I have reached the point where I want and need her story to be out there in the world, now I will warn you this is going to be a bit of a long one so you may want to grab yourself a cup of tea and maybe some snacks before we settle down.

As you can imagine I really didn’t expect to go into labour  at 24 weeks and although I can’t say I had the smoothest pregnancy ever (hello morning, noon and night sickness) nothing ever led anyone to believe I would go into premature labour.

Anyone that has been reading this little blog of mine for a while may know that back in 2014 I sadly had an early miscarriage, so of course I was slightly more wary this time around and for the first couple of months I was utterly convinced that something was going to go wrong, and I did have my fair share of scares along the way such as a bleed at nine weeks that meant I had to have an emergency early scan that thankfully showed everything to be fine, but then it happened again at eleven weeks once again somehow everything was fine and our little baby was safe and over the next few weeks I finally got to enjoy some of the more fun parts of pregnancy such as my twelve week scan and my twenty week scan which happily showed that we were having a little girl. After that apart from horrendous morning sickness that lasted the whole way thorough my pregnancy everything finally started to calm down.

That was until the 30th of June 2015 (which was ironically my due date with my first little one) Ben and I had been dreading the day anyway but when I woke up that morning I started to have a massive bleed and we ended up spending the day in the hospital, but I got the all clear and after an anti-D injection I was sent on my way. But actually looking back at that day now I really think that was the start of everything to come.

So now we have the basic’s of the story up until the 6th of July the day my pregnancy reached 24 weeks. It started off as a perfectly normal day, My partner Ben was working shifts at the time so on that day he had left for work at half past five in the morning and as per usual I stayed up for a bit after he had left and had a cup of tea ( which was basically the only thing i would be able to keep down this wasn’t  a baby that liked food ) when all of sudden at 6am i started to get some strange twinges that i just put down to a bad back but actually looking back this was the start of my contractions.

These pain’s carried on coming and going for the rest of the morning and funnily enough my eldest step-son spent the morning saying that he thought I was in labour as did my mother, but  I truly never thought it for a second and just thought they were being a tad dramatic (did I mention I’m an idiot???)

I desperately needed to go into town that day and thankfully because I didn’t feel great my mother came with me and so I spent the next few hours trying to distract myself whilst my mum looked on worriedly as I was having to stop and sit down every ten minutes (how the hell did i not see this was labour?)

I tried really hard just to stay calm and tell everyone else not to worry and at around ten pm the pain had started to get a tad worse but because I could still feel baby moving around I simply put it down to my mind working overtime.

At around eleven I tried my best to get some rest but as I lay down on the bed I had a sudden heavy pressure at the bottom of my stomach and I can remember clearly thinking hmm if  I was further along I would have thought that was labour, but again being an idiot I quickly told myself to shut up, then over the next hour or so the pain was getting increasingly worse and I finally started to feel like something really wasn’t right (about bloody time Benita) so it was at that point I called 111 and after explaining how I felt the operator sent a paramedic out.

Around half an hour later a lovely paramedic turned up, checked me over and said he wanted me to get checked out at the hospital just to make sure everything was fine as the pain was rather bad at this point and I was getting then every six to seven minutes.

On the way to the hospital he and Ben even joked about it being labour (hahaha how funny …) The thing is no-one was actually that worried as apart from these odd pains I felt fine and most importantly I wasn’t bleeding.

Then at one am everything changed one midwife asked me to do a urine sample ( TMI I know but this whole post is TMI so hey ho) as soon as went into the toilet I instantly saw blood and my heart dropped.

It was only  around two months ago that Ben finally told me it was actually in that moment that he thought we had lost her. but at the time he was so calm whilst I sat there not knowing what the heck to think.

A little while later a lovely doctor can in to check me over and she said that she couldn’t see my cervix very well because of the blood she wanted to get a second opinion but as she said this there was a look on her face and my heart just dropped even more, looking back I can clearly see that she knew (hindsight is a wonderful thing)

A few moments later a male doctor came in checked me over simply said okay and then walked off.

Now I have no idea how much later the next part happened but by this point the pains where every few minutes and a very nice midwife came in and said right were just going to take to down to the delivery ward and somehow in the next few seconds the room was full of people who we were told were from the neonatal team and how they where going to look after our baby and what would happen in the minutes after her birth. Cue Ben and I looking at each other and saying what quite a lot, and it was at the point that one of the nice people informed us that I was actually six centimeters dilated.

My first thought after being given this information was how the hell do we stop this, I vaguely remember reading things in the past where they stop labour, I had heard of it happening, I had hope.

The hope was short lived … Sorry we can’t do that one of the many doctors said and rather than feeling my heart drop further it just plain broke, I burst into tears and listened as people told us how tiny she would be and how they really wanted to be able to move us both to Oxford before she was born but they didn’t know if they had time but that they would move her afterwards.

We didn’t know if I was going to give birth that day, the next day or the next week no one knew.

So I was moved down to the delivery ward by which point I was a hell of a lot of pain and really had a strong urge to pee but couldn’t, then at 4 am my waters broke and to this day its the worst pain I have felt in my life and from what I know that part isn’t really supposed to hurt that much so whether that’s pointing to the reason that I had her so early I just don’t know as to this day I have never been told why this happened.

Anyway back to the horrendous pain, the next few hours pass in just a blur of contractions, scans and me telling everyone to fuck off (at least most of the last one was in my head)

Just after seven am another midwife entered the room and as her and the original midwife done their handover thingy my contractions started to get even worse all of a sudden and I had a bit of a weird feeling, cue me saying this and the original midwife telling me it’s fine, then it happened again about a minuet later but this time I really wanted to push and again I tell the midwife that something is happening.

And its at that point that she tells me I’m just panicking and it’s all fine. This annoyed me a little bit and I actually felt really rather calm but however I could feel the baby coming and so as this was all happening I somehow very calmly told her I wasn’t panicking but I did want to push, I knew this was the moment I had to stay calm just to get her to believe me, she then kind of sighed (don’t get me wrong she was lovely but I just don’t think she thought it would happen that quickly) So she sighed and moved the sheet off of me and I can still picture the look of pure panic on her face and her saying oh she’s coming and running out of the room (Ben later informed me she was shouting for every doctor that we had a twenty-four weeker coming right now but I didn’t know about any of that at the time) All I knew was that lovely new midwife was trying her best to keep me calm and tell ing me to try to not push (harder said then done trust me)

Suddenly there was a very lot of people in the room once again and Delilah Elizabeth Sweetness was born at 07:24 on the 07/07/2015 weighing in at 1 pound 6 ounces

I had one person telling me HE was lovely and another saying SHE was beautiful so I spent a few minutes wondering whether I had a son or a daughter. And watching on helplessly as three women calmly worked on Delilah (she was a girl yay)  Oh and FYI those three women where wonderful throughout our entire nicu stay and i will never be able to thank them enough for helping save my little girl’s life.

They spent the next five to ten minutes ventilating Delilah and making her safe enough to travel up to NICU (New Born Intensive Care Unit) but because she kept spitting out her tubes I got to hear one tiny cry from my daughter before she was whisked away upstairs . I then delivered my placenta and had a shower ( the second midwife was so lovely that she ran around finding me shower bits and bobs as I didn’t have a single thing with me)

As soon as we could we went upstairs and saw our beautiful tiny girl in her incubator for the very first time as the team from Oxford arrived and started to get everything ready to transfer her across. Those few hours are such a blur that the only things I can really remember is one of the nurses coming over and asking if Delilah had a H on the end of it or not as they where making up her little name card. And Reg the ambulance driver making Ben and I a cup of tea and I can remember thinking and hoping it was a really good sign that he shared the same name as my granddad (It made me feel like he was watching over her as she traveled between hospitals)

So suddenly we had a beautiful small but amazingly perfect little girl and at twelve pm she was rushed off to the john radcliff hospital whilst I had to wait to be transferred over (which didn’t happen for another eight hours) and I spent those hours just hoping she would make it until i got there.

But that part of the story can wait until another day as this post is certainly long enough.

Delilah (or Lilah for short) is now ten months and five days old and not a second passes by that we don’t realise just how lucky we are to have her home, she never fails to amazing me with just how strong and brilliant she actually is, if you see her today you would never realise what a journey she has had in her little life (the main thing that gives it away is the fact that she’s still only the size of a five or six month old although of course she is massive to us) And I am so thankful to every single Doctor and Nurse that not only helped make our little girl strong and keep her safe but also kept me slightly sane in our five month stay with them.

Thanks for reading lovelies

Love Benita x