Jacob's story
30 weeks 3 days, 1500grams
Jacob was born on 11 October 2005 at 30 weeks gestation weighing 1.5kg. There had not been any obvious problems during the pregnancy with him, he just decided it was time to enter this world.
The first few days of Jacob’s life are really just a blur to me, he had been delivered via emergency caesarean section and whisked off without me even getting a look at him. In fact, apart from seeing him briefly before I went up to the ward, it was 24 hours before I saw him again. I felt extremely helpless, confused and scared.
The next time I saw Jacob he was under the UV lights and all hooked up to machines beeping and all these flashing numbers that I eventually got to understand but that first time, full of confusion, still remains clear in my mind. The nurse looking after him came up to me and told me he hadn’t being doing very well and they were unsure how he was going to go, they thought he may have had an infection as he was losing weight too quickly, I am not a very religious person, but that day, I believe was the first time I truly prayed to GOD.
Two days later, I don’t know what or why, but suddenly he just turned a corner. Slowly but surely, with a few ups and downs in between and wondering if we were ever going to get out of NICU, he grew stronger and stronger. After 6 weeks, and weighing a whopping 2kg, we took him home.
I feel very lucky we had the experience we did in NICU. There were so many other babies that were worse off than Jacob, and to this day, every day, I feel thankful and blessed, in so many ways. Thankful to the amazing staff, for their dedication and kindness. Thankful to all my wonderful friends and family that were so supportive in so many ways. And blessed to have Jacob, to watch him grow into an energetic, determined, happy, give anything a go, wee boy.
My husband and I are truly blessed.
Thanks so much for sharing your personal story!
We get a lot of positive feedback from families in a neonatal unit who read these stories and feel strength, hope and positivity knowing that they are not alone going through these experiences and feeling certain emotions.
If you would like to discuss sharing the story of your neonatal journey, we’d love to hear from you.
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If you want to help our support of families going through the stress and anxiety of a neonatal journey, you can donate via the link below.
- The Little Miracles Trust provides support to families of premature or sick full-term babies as they make their journey through Neonatal Intensive Care, the transition home, and onwards. We do not receive any Government funding and are entirely reliant on the generosity of individuals, companies and organisations in the form of donations, value-in-kind donations, grants, sponsorship and fundraising events to supplement operating costs and fund our services and initiatives.
- As we are a registered charity (CC56619) with Charities Services New Zealand we will send you an IRD compliant tax receipt – this will happen automatically by return email.