Before you read the remainder of this story, you should know that in May my baby girl - Magdalene Iris Brown - died at one day old. The care she received at the James Cook University Hospital Neonatal unit has inspired me to do as much as I can to support the unit and its amazing staff. So I am running the Great North Run and I want to raise as much as I can for this excellent cause. Please support me with your donations and as importantly promote me. Feel free to pass this site via email or Facebook to friends who may like to support this cause. If you would like to hear more about our story, read on!
Around about this time last year, my wife and I found out that we were expecting our second child. In the months that followed, my wife's tummy inflated as our baby and excitement grew.
We decided that we wanted a 4D scan as our Christmas present and here we found out that we were expecting a little girl. As a family, we chose Magdalene's name and so my wife's bump and the squiggling, dancing babe therein became known as Maggie.
Just as with out first child, our due date came and went; that nervous, excited, frustration built in my family. Yet it happened, an hour before my wife was due to go to a hospital check up, she went into labour. We went directly to our hospital in and my wife proceeded to prove just how amazing she is by giving birth to a beautiful 9 lb baby girl without even a sniff of gas and air. Maggie was so beautiful and well worth the wait. She was born naturally and without assistance into a relaxed delivery room on the 5th of May in what seemed to be a routine delivery.
I am sure that time between a baby being born and the moment when they first cry can seem like an age. Unfortunately that moment did not come. Maggie was very poorly, even though her heart had been beating throughout the labour and held firm at birth. She had been constantly monitored without alarming any of the staff checking her. With hindsight the doctors tell us she became distressed towards the end of labour, tried to breathe and inhaled meconium. It was an unpredictable accident and all the more shocking because Magdalene was perfectly healthy in every way. The hospitals response to the situation was swift and potent. Within minutes she was on a ventilator and wearing a lovely pink woollen hat.
Once she was stable, a doctor came and spoke to us, he warned us that Magdalene had probably suffered some long term damage due to her experience, but told us she was well enough to be transferred to a specialist unit. Later that evening Maggie was transferred to where she was to be cared for.
When I arrived for the first time to the Special Baby Care unit of the Neonatal ward in James Cook it stunned me. The room was filled with nurses, doctors and a huge array of machines. Most of the babies in the room were tiny, tiny helpless little dots and Magdalene seemed oddly big and healthy looking in those surroundings. In fact, we were told she was the most poorly baby in that room.
Magdalene was on an astonishing array of life support systems and she was being cared for by the most dedicated and caring team that I have ever witnessed. We were spoken to by the team with respect and kindness, whilst always being kept fully informed of Maggie’s situation. We were also able to spend as much time as we wished with Magdalene. She was even baptised by my father in law – our convenient family vicar.
The Neonatal unit is actually equipped with a set of flats for parents who find themselves in similar circumstances, so it meant my wife and myself were able to eat, change, talk and sleep all in our own private area. I can’t emphasize what an important facility this was, especially considering Emma had just been through labour.
Magdalene was cared for so very well that she seemed to be recovering from the trauma she went through at birth. This was until the doctors received results from a deep brain activity scan and it became apparent that the long term damage Magdalene had suffered during birth was catastrophic. We spoke again to Magdalene’s lead doctor. She didn’t have a future and there wasn’t anything that could be done. I am sure of this because the doctors and nurses had done everything. Magdalene was still very poorly and her heart and other organs had been through huge trauma in the time since her birth.
Finally, we got to hold Magdalene for the first time. We had waited almost a day to hold her, but we finally got to cuddle our beautiful little girl. The staff respected all of our wishes and we went into a private room were Magdalene gradually came off her ventilator. We held her, we kissed her and we got to say goodbye in the most perfect way as she died in our arms. Without the outstanding care from the unit, this would not have been possible.
I cannot thank the hospital enough for keeping Magdalene safe enough for us to have that cuddle; for treating us with care, kindness and respect; for tending to her with such care after her death; for caring for us during Magdalene’s time there and in the weeks that followed.
If Magdalene could have been saved and I am certain this team would have done it, the unit saves lives all the time. Not every ward in a hospital can say that. The unit probably also saves whole families and marriages.
So why do they need donations? Isn’t this an NHS hospital? Many of the machines in the Neonatal unit and especially those in the special baby unit are funded by donations. The flat’s we stayed in were provided by fundraising. The Neonatal Unit is certainly enhanced by donations and even relies on them to deliver the standard of care that they now offer. I will continue to support this unit during my lifetime and I really hope you can support them too. Please sponsor me and do give generously. Believe me, I am not a man built to run 13 miles and it is my true belief in this cause that has spurred me on during training.
