6 Months Old Today – Looking back on our early arrival

Today my gorgeous baby boy is 6 months old. I can’t believe it’s been so long. I can’t believe it’s gone so fast! I’ve really enjoyed celebrating the little milestones of his life so far. I feel so privileged to be his mother and that I get to spend so much time with him and watch him become his own person.

So much has happened since the moment when I found out I was pregnant. I remember this day a year ago so clearly: I was nursing my morning sickness and waiting for my husband Mike to get back from his Grand Adventure to the Grand Canyon (you can check out his adventure blog here: Why Hike? ). We had no idea what the next year was going to hold for our family.

Our baby was longed for and when we found out we were pregnant we were ecstatic (and a little shocked!). All was under control – or so we thought. In September I found out I was pregnant and we found out we were having a boy, due in May 2015. At 6 months pregnant we moved into our first house on Valentine’s Day, and threw all our energy into it as we needed to get the house sorted before the baby arrived.

Six weeks after moving we were almost ready to begin thinking about Baby. We had prepared the baby’s room ready for painting and went out for the evening to celebrate Mike’s Grand Adventure fundraising efforts for our new church building, the C3 Centre in Cambridge.

That night my waters broke. I was 32+3 and I couldn’t believe it was happening, I was in total shock. It was 10pm and I just wanted to go to bed! The house was in chaos because of moving and decorating and I kept saying to Mike “I can’t have this baby now, the house is a mess!”. We went to the hospital but I had no contractions, and after 4 days of observation I was allowed home. At first I was begging to be allowed to go back to work (I was clearly in shock!) but I had an ultrasound and saw how little water was left around the baby and knew I had to stay home and keep him safe.

We met the neonatal team who were wonderfully reassuring and were told Baby was likely to arrive within the next 4 weeks. We’d planned to go away on a ‘babymoon’ and my baby shower was coming up, but we knew we needed to cancel everything and prepare quickly. When I went into hospital we had absolutely nothing – no car seat, no buggy, no Moses basket – and no idea what we needed. Mike did a LOT of panic shopping while I was in hospital!

I don’t know where we would have been without our church family. We had joined Cambridge Community Church (C3) 2 years previously and we love our church immensely. In the following week people from our church came and painted the baby’s room for us, made us meals, cleaned the house, took me to hospitals appointments, helped us unpack boxes and put up flat-pack furniture. They were absolutely incredible. My mum came up at the weekend to help us paint the living room and on Saturday night I turned to her before bed and said “I feel ready now”. Famous last words!

At 2am on Sunday, when I was 34 weeks pregnant, I woke up with contractions 2 minutes apart. I rang the hospital and they told me to come in right now! We had been told our baby had to be born on the Delivery ward as he would have to go to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) as soon as he was born. I had woken up in active labour and we felt like we were flying without a map, but our time in the hospital the week before had prepared us and we felt like we knew our way around at least. After 20 minutes of pushing Ethan was born at 4.54am – less than 3 hours since I’d woken up! He was certainly keen to arrive at 6 weeks early, and weighing 4lbs 5oz. He was checked over and we were given some time with him before he was taken off to NICU. When we saw him 2 hours later he was on a heated cot with a heart monitor, cannula, and a NG tube in. We were just so grateful that he wasn’t in an incubator and we could cuddle him. He was perfectly healthy, just small and needed to continue developing.

Ethan in NICU on the day he was born

From the very beginning the nurses on NICU were amazing, they got us changing nappies and tube feeding him straight away. They were hugely supportive in helping me with breastfeeding. I expressed milk to be fed to him through the NG tube and spent between 8-10 hours on the ward every day. It was really hard to go home and be away from him – the worst was the first morning at home when I woke up in my own bed without my bump or my baby I wondered if it had all been a dream – but the staff on NICU were incredible, and we had so much support. It was a blessing in disguise to have their care for us as well as our baby. They held our hands through those scary first days of parenting and gave us great advice, expertise and a listening ear. Our church were amazing too, they made us meals every day for 6 weeks. They would bring food to the hospital for us so we didn’t have to leave the baby and bought clothes for him as we had nothing that fitted him and no chance to go shopping.

Ethan stayed in NICU for 2 weeks and 2 days before coming home with his NG tube still in. The Community Nurses visited a lot and helped me to establish breastfeeding. After 2 weeks at home his tube came out and he was exclusively breastfeeding, and a further 2 weeks later he was discharged. I am extremely proud of the fact I have continued to breastfeed him, and I intend to continue until he is ready to wean himself. He’s happy and healthy, and he’s now a whopper at over 14lbs!

People say to us “you had such a difficult start” but I don’t remember it being difficult. I remember being surrounded by love and support. We were lavished with care during that time. I wish I could make a huge public statement to thank every single person who helped us in even the smallest of ways. If you were one of those people: thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Now here he is, 6 months old and growing fast. I love him more every day – despite teething and broken nights! – I can’t imagine life without him. I am so grateful to God for making me a mother; I feel whole now in a way I never was before. It’s not been easy or straightforward, but I treasure every single moment of the last 6 months.

Here’s to you Ethan, be blessed my son.