The baby was born premature but the nurse did what no one was supposed to do every family’s joy is heightened with the arrival of a child and simply gazing at that lovely bundle causes our hearts to burst with emotion as a result witnessing a sick newborn outrages us and causes us to believe that life is unfair since it causes innocent angels to suffer
On the contrary conor tapilco was a little newborn when he was born fortunately he and his family had the assistance of an alberta health services nurse who had a strong commitment to health and a great big heart which made all the difference in today’s world conor is a happy healthy and energetic four-year-old who just returned to the royal alexandra hospital with his family to express gratitude to their guardian angel
Registered nurse gwen o’neil who works in the neonatal critical care unit of the hospital nicu while you’re in the nicu it’s the most hard and stressful moment of your life and we don’t always take the time to express our gratitude to the nurses says sarah topilco a mother of a child in the intensive care unit sarah and her husband trevor and their kids connor and bentley surprised o’neal with flowers and a bag of chocolates a
Two pound one ounce package in honor of connor’s birth weight during an emotional reunion at the royal alex hotel in new york city o’neil was able to identify the family right away i feel privileged i’m deeply moved i was very taken aback and overjoyed that i had such an impact on someone’s life o’neill adds the overwhelming air of happiness that prevailed at that meeting was in stark
Contrast to the drama that had unfolded at the hospital four years before sarah had suffered from help syndrome a potentially fatal variety of pre and clabsia during her pregnancy and had gone into multi-organ failure as a result while sarah fought to stay alive on the operating table connor the couple’s first child was born in an emergency delivery at 27 weeks of pregnancy trevor describes the experience as
Overwhelming it appeared as though there were two dozen individuals racing around the operating room everyone had a job and everyone was well versed in their profession in fact by the time sarah was stable enough to see conor his weight had plummeted to one pound 10 ounces according to sarah they brought me up in my wheelchair and i was still quite weak i finally got to my feet and looked over to see him in the isolet my knees had just come completely out
From under me i was fortunate in that the nurse had the wheelchair underneath me connor was in the hospital for 65 days and during that period o’neill was a tremendous source of comfort for the entire family she created garments for connor the newest member of the toppilco family after realizing that clothing for babies as small as conor is not readily accessible in the market because she worked as a nicu nurse she
Knew that they were ideal because they could be opened in seconds allowing access to all of the connections and wires according to sarah the gift according to me was the most lovely gift anyone could have given me while the pair was experiencing stress and uncertainty sarah believes o’neill helped them to maintain a feeling of routine conor was born just two weeks after sarah and her husband celebrated their
Wedding anniversary by staying home of course we weren’t going anywhere sarah recalls o’neil encouraged the couple to leave the hospital and enjoy themselves telling them that she would take good care of connor throughout the evening she also offered to book a dinner reservation for the pair at her own expense as sarah explains since she was there we had the peace of mind to know that we
Could take him out to dinner for two hours and he would be fine sarah recalls that o’neill simply made sure that we were comfortable during connor’s two-month hospitalization she’s well aware that this has been one of the most difficult experiences we’ve ever had in our lives trevor continues it would have been quite different if o’neill hadn’t been there gwen went above and beyond her job description with the manner she treated us she
Brought us all together as a family she said the story of nurse gwen has been passed forward to connor who greeted her with a big bear hug after giving her flowers and chocolate the gesture definitely brought tears to o’neal’s eyes it only goes to show that it was all worth it the nurse explains for the family everything you’re doing everything you pour your heart into matters a lot it’s just tremendously
Satisfying in another similar story a mother tells us how it’s like to be a parent for a premature baby the first time i saw my baby was on an a piece of paper in the form of a snapshot produced by the nurse you’ve had a girl she said as she placed it on my lap i looked at the bright pink thing with a plastic tube in her mouth and wires hooked to her as i blinked through the fog of the general anesthetic
I felt love for her even though she appeared like a tiny joey eyes closed and incomplete as if she were on her way to her mother’s pouch billy weighed one kilogram when she was delivered at 29 weeks 11 weeks early i had awoken with pain and bleeding a few hours before my husband adam hurried me to the nearest hospital which was only a 10-minute drive through a couple red lights which was fortunate for us it’s a joke i tell all the time now but
I honestly thought medical dramas like grey’s anatomy were the only ones who transported patients from their beds to operating rooms before the anesthetic put me under a professional midwife with gorgeous blue eyeliner spoke to me gently in the operating room it’s strange how your brain clings to these minor memories possibly to block out the darker thoughts that i might not wake up with a child adam was alone in the labor ward
Thinking gloomy thoughts about how neither of us would return a placenta abruption occurs when the lining of the placenta which holds nourishes and grows the baby breaks away from the uterus billy’s heart rate had dropped dangerously low and i was bleeding profusely it was four hours later when i met my daughter in person still in my hospital bed a porter took
Me down to the neonatal intensive care unit and parked me next to billy’s huma crib according to the australian institute of health and welfare one in every 10 babies is born prematurely before 37 weeks and one in every six is admitted to a nicu the nicu is a noisy environment machines with blinking led numbers that monitor the baby’s heart oxygen levels and other statistics tower over the plastic huma
Cribs and the sirens go off all day it’s either your baby or the baby next door or across the room if it’s not yours a respirator delivers oxygen to their lungs and a cpap machine keeps their lungs open after they’re able to breathe on their own anne whose baby stella weighed 655 grams when she was born at 26 weeks compares being in the nicu to being in an aquarium there are bright flashing lights coming
From the computer with the stats and you’re listening to the constant bubbling she explains we chuckle and compare our children to prematurely hatched eggs in an incubator when she was born her eyes were still closed she was devoid of nipples anne explains in the nicu ann and stella had a neighbor named kelly kelly claims her eyes just couldn’t adjust to the size of him the first time she saw her baby
Brody who was also delivered at 26 weeks his skin was transparent but extremely crimson at the same time all of these little veins could be seen his tiny eyes were shut she explains the skin of premature babies like so much else is incomplete and paper thin they don’t like to be caressed so i’d sit for hours softly placing my palm over billy’s body afraid i’d break her nonetheless she was a formidable opponent she’d take her cpap snorkel or
Feeding tubes out with those small hands the nicu was a parallel realm where the outer world was irrelevant it might also be a solitary environment doctors nurses and staff pass you by while you sit in the huma crib for hours your hand in the porthole cradling your baby’s hand that barely wraps around your index finger laneice who gave birth to dexter at 31 weeks said she would stay there all day and push herself to go to the expressing
Room or out to lunch i wasn’t permitted to hold him for long periods of time so many times she says as a result you just sit there you want to touch him but knew you couldn’t since he was so sick and he didn’t want to spread anything to him so you’d sit there for a few hours and then think to yourself oh i haven’t done anything in a while i’ll wash my hands as a result you’d wash your hands when billy was five days old i had my
First cuddle with her my heart swelled when her eyes opened and gazed at me and she made small sucking noises we had our first skin-to-skin kangaroo snuggle when she was a week old kangaroo snuggle day was every other day i’d strip down to my underwear change into a hospital gown and sit into a huge soft recliner as the nurse carefully removed billy from the crib making sure not to tangle the cables and placed her on my chest
As nurses and physicians worked around this i’d sing to her or read a book to her a 27-week baby was born during my first kangaroo snuggle and a team in surgical gowns wheeled in a huma crib shrouded in green surgical drapes next to us while they worked on the newborn within the plastic box i tried to ignore them and focus on my child georgia that baby became billy’s new neighbor
Adriana her mother and i became friends fellow travelers on this long frightening journey into motherhood i remember sitting there for hours reading a book which i used to enjoy and she was so small that she would just fit inside my top adriana recalls i used to sing to her all the time and you start talking to yourself saying things like i’m going a little insane here but yeah i believe it’s just what you have to do in order to exist
Complications and long-term problems are common in extremely pre-term newborns born at less than 29 weeks the brain develops rapidly in the last few months of pregnancy and while premature newborns now have a reasonable chance of survival there is still a risk permanent impairment and increased likelihood of cerebral palsy learning difficulties and the three a’s autism adhd and anxiety are among them only 12 percent of the particularly 24 to 29 week group will skip any of the additional tasks thanks for reading.