When Michelle Townsend's baby was born at just 26 weeks and three days, it was two long, terrifying days before she was able to see her precious daughter. Audrey had been born just four hours after Michelle had gone into hospital for what she thought would be a routine check.
But the Cardiff mum, who put feeling unwell down to being pregnant but thought she should get it checked, had severe pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome, and her baby daughter had to be born immediately. HELLP syndrome is a rare liver and blood clotting disorder that can affect pregnant women. It's most likely to occur immediately after the baby is delivered, but can appear any time after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and in rare cases before 20 weeks.
It was a terrifying time for Michelle and her husband Jeremy, especially as they had had five attempts at IVF, and had got pregnant with their final embryo.
"I had been feeling a bit unwell and went to the GP to get checked out," remembers Michelle. "As soon as she took my blood pressure, she suggested I go straight to the hospital. I thought it was just going to be a routine check up, but I arrived at the hospital at 11:30am and Audrey was born four hours later.
"Those few hours were a bit of a blur of doctors, midwives, increasingly serious conversations, and being hooked up to more and more machines.
"There was no time to really think through what was happening, we were terrified but powered by adrenaline, I think. The only clear decision I remember being able to make was that I wanted to name her before she was born, we called her Audrey, after my Nan. She was born by emergency C-section but fortunately I was able to be awake. We were told we wouldn’t be able to hold her and that she would need to be taken by the doctors immediately, but we did hear a little cry and it was incredible."
You can't imagine what the couple went through next as they waited for a terrifying six hours before before receiving the call from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) to say that their daughter, who only weighed 1lb 10oz, was stable.
Jeremy was able to go to the unit, but Michelle was too unwell, and it was another two days before she would be able to see Audrey properly for the first time.
"He returned with a precious photo and reports of how incredible the staff and the equipment were in the unit. I was finally able to see her two days later," she says. "I felt totally overwhelmed by the NICU, although my husband seemed like an expert as he tried to explain to me what all of the machines, tubes and numbers meant. It would be another few days until we finally got to hold her.
"I remember a nurse telling me that in a few days I would understand it all, and I just thought 'I don’t want to know what all of this means, just make sure she is ok'. I was terrified, I didn’t know or understand what we were facing. It was also daunting finding our way around the unit and getting to know how it all works, but over the course of the next few weeks, we got used to it and it became our second home."
Audrey might have been tiny, but she was feisty and overcame chronic lung disease, an open duct in her heart and other complications linked to prematurity. It took a long time for her lungs to develop and be weaned off oxygen support, and because of a number of setbacks, ended up being on the unit for a total of 131 days. Watched over by her anxious parents.
For Michelle one of the most difficult things was dealing with her mental health, and she now tells her story as a way of helping other families who might be going through a similar situation.
"Seeing other families coming and going in that time was hard, and in the early days when we arrived at the ICU, we would stare through the other doors into the high dependency unit and wonder when we might get to graduate to the next room," she says. “Getting to go home felt like a lifetime away, there were days when it was incredibly hard to believe we would get there.
“You feel like there’s so little you can do for your baby, expressing milk is one thing you can do to help I found it quite tough, but there was a lot of support on the unit. One positive of it was the chance to meet and talk to other mums in the feeding room.
"In the early days I was so scared of every procedure Audrey needed to have, it helped so much to hear that other little ones had been through it too. As we became the veterans of the unit, I tried to pass that reassurance on to others where I could. It was also heart-breaking meeting parents whose little ones weren’t able to make it home and who had to say the saddest of goodbyes."
Michelle says that looking back, she has no idea how they did it, and likens it to running a marathon, "but without any idea of how far we had to run or where the end was".
Audrey is now about to celebrate her third birthday, and her proud mum is supporting the charity attached to the NICU and is keen for raise awareness of the need for more counselling and mental health support for parents who spend time in NICU.
"The staff at the unit are amazing, and the level of care Audrey received was incredible," she says. "But there is definitely a need for more mental health and emotional support. The unit we were on does now have a psychologist who has been funded by the Noah's Ark charity which is a great development, but that wasn’t in place when we were there. Every parent who needs it should have access to support while they are going through this experience and afterwards because the impact is still there even when you do get to go home.
"The experience definitely affected my mental health both during our time in NICU and after, I had a lot of anxiety and found it difficult when Audrey first came I didn’t trust myself that I knew what to do to help her and to go from so much medical and nursing support to being on your own is hard. The first lockdown began days after we brought her home and it was a really tough time despite being what we had wishes for for so long,
"Dealing with the impact of finally getting pregnant after so many IVF attempts and then having a very premature baby has not been easy, but we also know how lucky we are. She really is a little miracle.
"Our time on the unit was tough but also very humbling, we cannot thank the staff enough for everything they did for Audrey and we met some amazing other NICU parents, who are a very special bunch. Having a baby in NICU is an emotional rollercoaster, no two days are the same and the highs can come as quickly as the lows. I have no doubt that it has changed me forever and despite being such a hard experience, it is now a really important part of our family story. We are so proud of Audrey who is now doing really well. Premature and sick babies really are incredible, as are all the staff who work so hard to save them."
Michelle has worked with the charity Bliss, the helps families with babies who are born prematurely or sick. Details can be found here.
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