The last seven days in special care

One thing that always made me feel emotional was witnessing another couple taking their baby home whilst we were stuck in hospital. I would cry inside and think to myself ‘please be us next’, but the girls just weren’t big enough.


After spending all this time in special care, I was starting to see how the routine of special care would benefit us when we would eventually bring the girls home. The nurses had got them into a good feeding routine for us.

Moving on and as mentioned in my previous post we were awaiting some test results back for M.  Eventually the chromsone test results came back and thank god they were all negative.


The relief was immense! Our consultant explaned it was just one of those unexplained things. Something that happened in thew womb to prevent her from growing that just couldn’t be explained. 


It was brilliant news! All that worry and heartbreak had been for nothing.

As time to bring our girls home got closer, one of the nursery nurses decided that it was time to show us how to bathe our girls.

She was very patronising and clearly stuck in her ways. Anyway I thought to myself that I’ve had children before, so I think I know how to bath a baby! i took over and I think the nurse was a little shocked at how competent I was!


We still had a few days to go before we could bring the girls home. Every night when the time came that we would have to leave, it was heartbreaking. In fact it felt as though it was getting worse. The closer we got to getting them home, the more we just wanted them with us every night.

The following day was a Friday and I remember there was talk of the girls going home in a couple of days time. Time must have stood still. After 27 days in special care, let me tell you every day goes by slowly.

On the Saturday it was decided that the girls could come home on the Sunday. Oh yes! Fantastic!

There was so much to do!

On the special care ward there was a room for the parents to stay overnight with their babies before they were allowed to take them home. It would be our first night together. Granted it was in hospital, but we were all in the same room together for the first night ever. All night!


Around 6pm we moved into the room with the girls in their cots. 

I’ll be totally honest with you. After being in a special care ward surrounded by the safety of the nurses and doctors being around 24/7 if anything went wrong, it finally dawned on me that even though the nurses and doctors were only next door I felt completely panicked. 


I had to get out of the hospital.


So many thoughts went around in my head.


My god how would we cope?


After around 30 minutes I returned slightly more relaxed to our room the night.

Upon my return my wife went to collect the girls milk from the nurses and as she did she over heard one of the nurses, who was Spanish, say to another nurse that in Spain the girls wouldn’t have been let home at their current weights. The nurse thought the girls should stay in hospital for longer, even though the consultants and doctors were all in agreement that they were ready to go home. Naturally this upset my wife and I. 


I thought the nurse was tactless and totally inappropriate with her comments. 

Anyway moving onto a more positive note and our first night went smoothly. My wife stayed with the girls while I went to the ward to get their milk and medication.


When I returned the girls were being brought back onto the nursery ward so that their final checks could be done. 


We were given the girls prescription milk and I went home to get the car seats. It was surreal!

This was really happening!


The day went very slowly. My wife and I had lunch in the hospital and then before we knew it we were on our way home with our girls!

After all this time in hospital we were going home together.

There were no more tears, just smiles all the way home.

In my next post I’ll talk about our arrival at home and our first night. Thanks for reading.