Taylor's Story

23 weeks 5 days, 580 grams

Waking to what I thought were growing pains I ignored them, went back to work and out for dinner with friends. During the next night my discomfort wasn't settling and I rang the hospital's midwife for some advice. I was in hospital within the next few hours for an 'observation'.

It was soon quite obvious I was in labour and I was given medication to slow the labour and given steroids to help develop the baby's lungs.

Arriving by ambulance into Wellington Hospital I met a team of doctors and nurses in the delivery suite, it wasn't until the early hours of the morning that Taylor was born naturally weighing 580 grams.

On our first visit to see Taylor we were given a briefing about the unit and Taylor's condition. Taylor was small, had red skin, his eyes were fused with patches over them. He wore a nappy the size of a tissue, was on a ventilator, had numerous IVs in his arms and  legs for medication and nutrition, had chronic lungs, jaundice, and an Open Heart Valve (PDA), but all we saw was our beautiful son who had a mop of dark hair.

Taylor's main problem was his size and having Chronic Lung Disease. He spent 17 days on the ventilator while we tried to increase the size of his nostrils with plastic prongs. As he progressed he spent 5 days on CPAP then for a further 21 days depending on how hard he was working alternating being back on the ventilator and the CPAP.

I first touched Taylor on Day 4 by taking his temperature. My first cuddle was on Day 26, this lasted a good couple of hours.

Taylor was making incredible progress, oxygen levels slowly dropping, milk intake (by tube) increasing, gaining weight, out of an incubator into an open incubator, no IVs then he came down with an infection. This was a major setback. He was put back on the ventilator, IVs, a high frequency oscillator which shook his body, wore hats to keep body temperature, tubes in his mouth and through his nose, ear muffs as he wasn't tolerating any noise or anyone handling him. We were told to prepare very quickly for the worst. We called the priest and family in and baptized him. We stayed with him reading stories, talking to him and gently touching his fingers.

During the night he stabilised, and every hour that went by he was stable, it was great news. We slept most nights for the next week at the hospital. 16 days later I walked in one morning and found one of the nurses giving him a cuddle and back on CPAP - we were back on that roller coaster.
After close to 5 months in the NICU we were transferred closer to home to the SCBU at Hutt Hospital. Taylor maintained good progress, but to get him home we had to get him off CPAP and onto Low Flow Oxygen. 6 weeks later we finally all arrived together with oxygen and an apnoea monitor. Taylor thrived and came off the oxygen well before we all expected only 3 weeks later.

Taylor is another miracle baby, he is a strong, healthy, happy little boy who has a great zest for life.

For me, Taylor's Mum, my advice is take photos every day, only think about one day at a time, try to rest, try to go to the parent lunches and don't worry about the housework.