Daisey was born on Tuesday 30th October.
As you know, she was healthy, perfect and with me on the ward.
Without going into to much detail (my own reasons) on Thursday 1st November at around 2am, Daisey was intubated, sedated and started on anti seizure medications.
Now at this point we didn’t know 100% what she was facing but we were pretty certain that whatever it was, she was extremely poorly.
Our whole world was crashing down at this time, our boys were at nursery, needing to be picked up at 3 and we were sat by our daughters bedside in intensive care not knowing what to do, my heart and my body wanted to be with them and with daisey.
Luckily we found someone to get the boys and we knew then that we could focus on Daisey. We were told at about 3pm that Thursday evening she needed to be transferred to another hospital as she had reached the care ours could provide and she needed more care.
The team set off to pick her up and we waited for their arrival, with bags packed full of clothes I was worrying my baby would never wear, I had to have my blood taken in case she needed a blood transfusion and they’d use my blood somehow (can’t remember) to give her it.
At this point Daisey was still having seizures, she was linked to an EEG showing them and she also had them visibly - one of the worst things I’ve ever ever seen💔
She was loaded with another anti seizure drug when the team arrived and she was then put into the transport incubator and she set off. We got a lift with my mums friend from work as I didn’t want my mum alone driving home as me and Kieran were staying with daisey.
By around 8pm Daisey had arrived and was stable on the ICU.
We were very kindly given a room to stay in very very close to the ward, with a double bed, a sofa & a tv. There was a communal shower, kitchen and a pumping room. It was all very alien to us as we hadn’t known this kind of world even existed and we were very quickly inside of it.
That first night was incredibly hard, we weren’t given any news, anything positive or negative just ‘she’s stable and we’ll come and knock on your door if anything changes’
Like I could sleep knowing that.
On the Friday, nothing really happened apart from keeping Daisey stable, I was pumping for her in the hope that she’d get to have it as at this point she was only having fluids and medicine, not any milk. Family were all frantic and wondering what was going on, wanting updates and answers that as point we just couldn’t give, we didn’t know ourselves.
We were told she had a group b strep infection that’s led to sepsis and meningitis and she’s also having seizures. They would do a lumbar puncture to confirm, but they weren’t in any rush as they were pretty certain that’s what it was. That’s all the answers we had.
NICU is loud, but peaceful at the same time.
It’s lonely, but full of people.
It’s scary, but you’re reassured every moment of the day.
When Ronan Keating said life is a rollercoaster, he wasn’t lying 🙈
Everything kind of stops on a weekend, there weren’t any tests, any scans, any results, any answers, until Monday when things restart again.
So for that Saturday and Sunday, the boys came and visited, we kind of told them what to expect and we took them in, stood them on tiny stools and washed their hands and elbows as you have to do every time you go into the ICU & we took their tiny hands and showed them their baby sister. Noah said ‘Daiseys in an emergency machine’ and my heart just.. melted, burst, collapsed.
I was so worried about bringing family into the NICU to see Daisey, I felt like me and Kieran were just used to it, we’d seen the wires and we knew what the medications were for and we’d heard the alarms, seen SATS drop and I just didn’t want to worry anybody with it. But I wanted them to also have some memories of Daisey and to have their own pictures and experiences.
So on that weekend my boys, my sister, my aunts, my mum, Kieran’s mum & my stepdad saw Daisey. She was only allowed to actually be touched by me & kieran, the rest just stood and adored our little human. ❤️
On Monday, life resumed...
I’m going to leave you hanging there!
