Posted on
11 June 2012, under
Fatherhood; More Fatherhood articles...
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Irish Premature Babies: My Story - Part 2
Written by Ronan Halpenny, father of Harry
We finished getting changed. I sat dazed in the hall listening to the sound of the automatic doors opening and closing as various people moved around in preparation for the surgery. I couldn’t see Lisa but I could hear her talking in the theatre, only ten feet away, and there was a swarm of people around her. “I’ll call you in a few minutes...” he said as he entered the theatre. It felt like hours. To occupy my time and my mind I took out my diary. The first entry reads like this...click on pic
It was at this point, mid-sentence, that Dr. Geary called me into the theatre. Game on.
Dr. Geary introduced me to the team of people who would be helping to deliver Harry. Hello, Hi, Hello. Everyone was so calm, so I felt calm (ish). End of pleasantries, down to business. Scalpel please. The procedure started almost straight away. There was a lot of what seemed like extremely deliberate and efficient movement behind the little screen that was perched on Lisa’s chest. I could not see past the screen, but there was still an air of calm despite the activity. In the reflection of Dr. Geary’s protective eyewear I could sort of see what was happening at ground zero, but not really clearly. Some more movement, the sound of the suction, ferocious concentration on his face, a final flurry of movement and then Harry emerged, at reasonable speed, pulled out by his legs, upside down (as far as I can remember).
My recollection of some of these bits is a bit hazy (hence Lisa’s story may be slightly different, although maybe actually accurate), but I think Harry made a brief crying noise, a good sign at 26 weeks gestation for sure. Dr. Geary may also have briefly held Harry up above the screen so we could see him before he was put in an open top incubator for all the Apgar stuff, intubation (I think) and whatever else was required in order to help him in ways he could not help himself. I’m not sure how long all that stuff lasted but the next time I saw Harry he was all wrapped up and ready to roll (literally) down to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU, another abbreviation I will never forget in my life). I got to see him briefly as he rolled past; in fact they stopped the bus so I could see him. I touched his nose and cried hard, and then he was off to the next stop.
The rest of that evening is a bit of a blur. I chatted with Lisa in the recovery room for a while, both of us still entirely oblivious to the seriousness of the situation, as I remember it anyway. Later in the evening (Harry was born around 6:00pm) a nurse brought us a photograph of Harry from the NICU. What a ridiculous situation to have to have to experience; for one of your first glimpses of your son to be a photo printed on an A4 sheet. More tears.
Eventually we both got to go to the NICU together to see him (I had walked down a couple of times, a privilege borne out of not having your abdomen cut open), and it is at this point that things get really hazy, because I don’t quite remember the very first time we saw him together. Fortunately I had a camera from the outset so there are pictures and videos to document what my brain has not captured effectively. Indeed there are over three thousand photographs and about ten hours of video footage to document the three months that Harry spent in the NICU.
I have also maintained a written diary (the one that I started outside the delivery suite), to this day actually, of Harry’s life. I wrote entries daily when he was in hospital, now I write in it every few months. Keeping a diary is something I recommend to all parents who find themselves in this position. Please do it...
On your fourth cup of tea yet? Go make it now, I’m nearly done...
The three months that Harry spent in hospital were very tough. As I keep saying, we didn’t realise it at the time, but in hindsight it really was very difficult indeed. Clearly something inside us was protecting us from the harsh reality of the situation, akin to an inner protection system allowing us to be there for Harry without falling apart at the seams. I don’t know how we didn’t fall apart at the seams to be honest.
There were days when we just about held it together; hearing word of yet another blood transfusion (twelve in total in case you’re wondering), or the day he had to be resuscitated after worst bradycardia ever, or four days before Christmas when instead of bringing him home we were greeted with the news that he had another infection and had to stay another week, and so on...
Personally my I-think-I’m-falling-apart-at-the-seams moment was when I found out that Harry had developed ROP (Retinopathy of Prematurity – Google it!) and would subsequently need laser eye surgery. For some reason I was there on my own that morning. I remember the look on the doctor’s face as she approached me, her pained expression while she did so, and afterwards just sitting staring into the incubator at Harry, in floods of tears, wondering if he could see me through his little eyes, and indeed if he would ever be able to see his Daddy. If I recall correctly, he had his surgery that evening. I remember someone suggesting that we leave the hospital and have some food etc. because the procedure would take a couple of hours, so we did. We sat in Jury’s Hotel on Parnell Street. We didn’t eat.
The most surreal part of that day was when we were walking back to the hospital. It was dark outside, and the room where the procedure was taking place overlooked the street. The blind was pulled down but we could still see flashes of red laser light from the room (sort of like what you might imagine seeing if Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s duel from episode III were to take place in that room, with red lightsabers of course!). Everyone on the street would have seen the light if they were looking remotely in that direction, however we were the only people who knew what it was; no Star Wars, no CGI, but a surgeon performing laser eye surgery on a baby who was about as big (or indeed small if you will) as a size ten shoe and not even supposed to be born for another month. Surreal indeed, but in the trusty hands of Professor Michael O’Keefe, the lightsabers saved Harry’s eyesight that night.
The most wonderful, happy and tear inducing moment was on Christmas day. When we arrived in Harry’s room, he was dressed in what must have been the smallest Santa suit in the world, sleeping soundly, with a wrapped Christmas present in his cot by his head, from Santa! Harry’s first Santa present ever, it was a small, brown toy puppy, which he still has to this day, although one of the plastic eyes has fallen out. There was also a small Christmas card in an envelope for myself and Lisa, with a beautiful photograph of Harry. Cue Daddy crying again.
A couple of days later, the day that we waited for so long finally arrived. On December 28th we finally got to bring Harry home. Bringing Harry home that day even went down to the wire though. It was to depend on how he got on in an eye examination early that morning, and by the way, just in case you think it was all plain sailing, Harry had had yet another blood transfusion the previous day. Sure why not, one for the road and all that.
I will (finally) finish with some excerpts from the diary entry on the day Harry came home...
“...We were nervous about your eye exam and we didn’t even phone in the morning, we just went straight in and the second we went in the door Breda said ‘He flew through his eye exam’. We asked could we take him home and she said yes! We went in to see you and we were so happy that we were taking you home...
...This was it Harry. We dressed you in your blue suit from Therese and the white suit Aunty Kerri gave you. (Dr.) Ireti came in and helped us put you in your car seat, were all set now...
...it was time to go home, after 12 weeks and 1 day, 85 days in total, time to go home finally! It was a bit emotional, your Mum was crying and I nearly was too. Ireti gave us a hug and we headed off. Everyone from ICU came to see us off...the door closed behind us, and all of a sudden we were in the corridor we walked thru so many times before, but always without you, but today was different, you were coming home...
...so we drove off and that was it, the end of one adventure, the start of another...we arrived home, opened the door, switched off the alarm...Harry is home at last... A day never to forget...”
This was my experience, thank you for reading it, and drinking so much tea.
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