At 6.30 my mummy came to find me in the main nurses station I was in my crib, she was wrapped in her white dressing gown with bare feet and looked weary, I was having my foot squeezed for blood by Helen the Paediatrician, she looked away from me to Mummy with a concerned face and asked if she was OK
‘That’s my baby’, she said. The faces dropped all around. The doctors were very worried about me not eating and my temperature wasn’t stabilizing.
Next Helen started (tentatively) to talk to Mummy ‘Has anyone mentioned anything about some of Eleanor’s unusual features?’
Mummy looked puzzled, what were ‘Large fontanelles? What did loose skin on my legs or poor muscle tone on my bum mean? Was she aware that I had been unusually floppy at birth and quiet…my mouth was slightly indented….there was small lump on my spine and my posterior was anterior? ‘ I think this means I’m not perfect?
At 6am I guess no on needs a biology lesson all Mummy wanted to know was – ‘What's wrong with her? Is she going to be OK?’ and then got a bit more wobbly.
The doctors decided to take me up to the special care baby unit while Mummy made a call home that would break Daddy’s heart.
I had tests, I was redressed in a warm pink cardigan and pink bobble hat, not the yellow one Mummy had picked for me. I was given a cannula for antibiotics in my arm and a feeding tube was inserted through my nose and I was eventually fed and sleeping by the time Daddy and Mummy arrived at my cot side in the room with all the purple lights and tropical heating.
The doctors explain all my tubes and monitors, my temperature has stabilised but they were monitoring my oxygen levels were dipping.
Mummy was asked to leave the room regularly because she had to make milk for me, she cried a lot but always came back with a few droplets which would increase in the days to come with a lot of persistence and the help from a big yellow pumping machine.
It was starting to get dark when the doctors had another conversation away from Mummy and Daddy, there was a lot of quiet talking where I was concerned, they then decided I still wasn’t very warm so I got to sleep in a big plastic incubator with portholes.
Prior to my milk feed which were set two hourly the nurses would withdraw my tummy contents to check the tube was in the right place, they then tested it with acid strips, it was mucousy with blood, they assumed I had an infection caused by swallowing amniotic fluid.
(Editors Note - Baby Ellie you are so brave and strong letting them take all that blood with those needles. Mummy and Daddy are so proud.)
Daddy stayed until about 8pm, but he was so tired. Mummy sat by my incubator and cuddled me with supervision until 12pm by which time the nurses made her go back to the ward to get some sleep and I was looked after by Kath.
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