#30DaysofBrave Day 9- Chelsea

On Wednesday 12 May 2021 at 7:37am we welcomed our baby boy, Owynn Richard Carr, to the world via an emergency c-section. He weighed 6lb 8oz and was 18.5in long.

Immediately after his birth he exhibited signs of serious respiratory distress and was admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Royal Alexandra Hospital. They gave him airway support and things looked not too bad on Wednesday evening. However, by the Thursday morning Owynn had deteriorated quite severely with his breathing and signs of a worsening infection yet to be identified and so was intubated and put on a ventilator to manage his airway and breathing. Due to the ventilation requirement and a few other things the staff in the Paisley NICU noticed, they called for an emergency transfer of Owynn to the Royal Hospital for Children’s NICU, the highest level of support available for sick babies in Scotland.

Once he was settled at the RHC’s NICU, and following a period of time last week where he only got worse and was put on more and more support (Owynn was just a step away from a very invasive blood transfusion oxygenation procedure (ECMO) to protect his lungs and give them a break) he begun to make some big strides on the road to a recovery. The neonatal team gradually weaned him off of his sedation and paralysis medications, he had his ventilator breathing tube removed on the Wednesday evening - one week after bus birth, his nasal oxygen prongs were turned off on Thursday at lunchtime, and his final IV lines and medications removed and/or given on Thursday night.

The consultant on Thursday (who had looked after him since Monday) was so impressed with the speed of his progress. Following a few last scans of his heart to check a couple tiny things they want to monitor for awhile as an outpatient, she recommended he move back to the Paisley NICU to the level 1 care (RHC NICU was level 3) to work on establishing breastfeeding. The last wee hurdle to going home that they felt he needed to overcome. And on Friday morning we got the 15min notice that the transport team were ready with the neonatal ambulance to move us back to the hospital where it all started.

The staff at the RHC NICU were utterly incredible. They kept us sane and took such amazing care of our wee boy. Explaining everything they were doing, and teaching us how to help with his cares (eye care, nappy changes) and by Saturday, with his gradually increasing milk feeds via an NG tube. We can never thank the nurses, doctors, and consultants enough for helping Owynn to get better and into a position where now all we need is for him to figure out this feeding thing. The staff at the Royal Alexandra Special Baby Care Unit have been incredible with helping us learn how to breastfeed (especially since Mummy has been expressing milk since Owynn was born and had quite a lot there already for the wee man, he just needed to learn to take it!).

Because of my own personal connection to the NICU, having spent time there myself as a preemie newborn, this was an experience that I never expected, but of which I was intimately aware of all the ways it could go, good or bad. My twin sister and I were born at 32 weeks over thirty years ago. She, though healthier and in better shape than me initially, ended up developing Necrotising Enterocolitis (NEC) and passed away after a failed surgery to correct it. With the knowledge of how things had changed so fast with my sister in the NICU, I felt myself constantly trying to keep from going down a rabbit hole of bad outcomes. Three days after Owynn’s birth, at our lowest point, I could not see being in the kind of positive place were in ten days later. We were able to take him home for the first time on the Sunday, 23 May. This joy was, however, short-lived as his feeding effectiveness over the next 48h suffered dramatically and we were readmitted to the Paisley NICU after he lost 17% of his birth weight (after putting on a pound and a bit of fluids during his previous NICU stay). We took another two nights with Mommy rooming in on the unit to establish a more solid and lasting feeding plan. Turns out wee man still had loads of energy from his nutritional drip and NG feeds that he appeared to feed well before our first discharge, but in actuality he didn’t have enough energy to sustain full time breastfeeding. We worked with the neonatal team of midwives to come up with a plan that involved breastfeeding as a first option during the day, with top ups of expressed milk via bottle after each feed, and bottles of formula given at night when Owynn really didn’t have the energy to feed at the breast at all.

I had many mixed emotions about our return to NICU after the initial discharge, ones mainly revolving about my failure to successfully feed my child and give him the energy he needed. I soon came to terms with whatever way gave him what was required as quickly and efficiently as possible. That was what was best for him. We have since massively improved our breastfeeding relationship, and wee man has jumped several percentiles up to the 12th (from <1) and we have weaned off the formula almost entirely, though we still give at least one bottle a day of expressed milk as his ability to take bottle, breast, or formula has been a benefit for grandparent babysitting and Daddy helping with night feeds and giving Mommy a break.

I am so grateful that Owynn has put up such a fight and exceeded all our expectations for his recovery. He is meeting his developmental milestones so far, and at four months old has developed quite the mischievous personality! I hope that all NICU parents with their littles now at home are able to find the joy in them and let go of some of the stress and grief of their start in life, something we work to do each and every day.