15 Aug 2006 - This precious gift of life - Samuel David Berry

To our dear family and friends

It is with a mixture of emotions that Mich, Matt and I want to let you know that we have a little boy and brother. Mich had been battling with the onset of pre-term contractions since early last week and managed to keep him in up to the critical point of 26 weeks but on Tuesday morning at 3h18 little Sam decided his time had come. There is no doubt that he has his mother’s exquisite looks and, weighing in at 860 grams, his father’s sinewy frame.

Most of you will realise that 26 weeks is very early for a baby to be out of the womb and so for those unfamiliar with the land of premature babies I need to explain some of what happened so that you understand where we are at the moment and will be for the next while. My apologies too for the delay in getting this email out but until now we have mostly felt like just curling up into a little ball.

On Monday night with the contractions strengthening, our gynae had put Mich onto a drip and been planning to keep a close eye on things with a view to doing a caesarean section later this week at the earliest. So our little man’s arrival took us all by complete surprise resulting in a very distressing emergency situation for Mich and me in the early hours of the morning. One minute we were sitting exhausted in darkness with Mich fighting her uterus, the next I had a midwife screaming orders at me to turn on lights, switch on the Entonox gas and run for help. However, before any of that could happen our precious little son landed on the bed fighting furiously to get out of his sac. I think this was almost as much a shock for the midwife as for us but her training kicked in as she instinctively cut open the sac, clamped and cut his cord and then raced down the corridor to the Neo-natal ICU with me trying to calm Michy who was pretty frantic by then. The only consoling moment was as she cut open the bag he gave a little squawk to let us know he was alive. I break down every time I think of or relate this and have had a number of people ask me if I’m still there when talking on the phone, so I hope you will forgive me writing about it instead.

Physically Michy is fine and was safely tucked up in bed at home last night for the first time in ten days. Emotionally we are both still battling as we recover from a week of being on the edge of our son’s life inside the womb (a delivery any sooner than Monday would have been a late miscarriage) and the most utterly traumatic experience we hope ever to face as he exited. We have never cried so much as over the last three days as we process an array of emotions ranging from overwhelming relief and gratitude that he is still alive to guilt, sadness, frustration and anger that our son has to start life in this terrible way. Dealing with this is compounded by the fact that we are unable to hold him and have not yet properly seen his face which is covered in pipes and bandages. All we can do is touch his tiny hands or feet. Yesterday we started reading him “The Wind in the Willows” so that at least he hears some familiar voices for part of the day. Our heads are starting to come to terms with what has happened and the fact that we will be spending at least two months with him in ICU. Our hearts are quite far behind.

We’re so thankful that he is alive. He is the smallest person we have ever seen and each time we see him we are amazed at his resilience and grateful for every new day of his life. Basically he has been transferred from one very comfortable dark womb with one mother and one life cord to another, noisy and brightly lit, with a respirator, constant sedation, a cocktail of four drips keeping him alive and four surrogate mothers (the incredible nurses in the Neo-natal ICU). I’m constantly amazed at the care and love that these total strangers show to these precious little ones. Apart from the fact that he has lived for three days we have been greatly encouraged by:

- a brain scan yesterday which showed no haemorrhaging which is common in pre-term vaginal delivery, hence the original Caesar plan

- every organ intact

- his lungs starting to work a bit for themselves

- his first successful blood transfusion yesterday - his little body only has around 60ml of blood in it

- his arterial canal closing without the need for further drugs or an operation

Many answers to many prayers.

The doctors and nurses are very pleased with his progress but despite all the encouraging stories of other prem babies surviving (which do give us much hope) we are under no illusions that he is a healthy, happy baby. We would so appreciate your prayers for a whole bunch of things but right now specifically for:

- no major infections (this is by far the biggest risk at this stage)

- his kidneys to reach full functionality

- no haemorrhaging in his brain

- his gut to accept the breast milk Mich is getting out

- his eyes to continue developing healthily – the eyelids are still fused tight shut

- and especially Mich as she starts with the breastpump every 4 hours

I would be grateful too if you could lift up our other son Matt (2 and a bit years old) who has been an absolute trooper through all of this and told his baby brother his name for the first time yesterday. He has totally charmed the ICU staff and thoroughly enjoyed quite a bit of time staying with Nanny and Pompa (my parents) over the past week. Thankfully we started reading the new baby books to him early on during the pregnancy and he seems to be coming to terms with the fact that his baby brother won’t be coming home as soon as the library books would have him believe. Tonight the three of us are sleeping under the same roof for the first time in ten days which will help give him some much needed stability.

From today we begin trying to find the balance between visiting our little fella in hospital as much as possible, my work and caring for Matt. We’re not quite clear how we’re going to manage this and would appreciate your prayers for strength over his next two months in ICU and then beyond as we enter the “normal” stresses of having what would have been a full term baby in mid-November.

Through all of this we are so grateful to God for our two beautiful sons. We know that He has a plan for our family and trust Him with Sam’s life and continued development.

Thank you to you all for the constant stream of messages, gifts, visits and practical offers of help. We have felt quite overwhelmed by the loving community of which we are so privileged to be a part. We know that there have been hundreds of prayers offered up for us over the last while from you and complete strangers – thank you all for your support in getting us this far.

Hoping and trusting that with each passing day our little guy gets bigger and healthier and our strength to deal with his journey keeps pace.

With all our love

Terence