Dain's Superhero Challenge

🌟🌟 MISSIONS COMPLETE 🌟🌟

🌟 Kindness Bake cakes for our neighbours 🌟 

🌟 Nature Make a bug hotel 🌟 

🌟 Physical Walk 50 miles 🌟

🌟 New Skills Learn to count to 10 in French, German, Spanish, Welsh and Arabic 🌟 (you can see him complete the challenge here: https://youtu.be/KUv1jvwKefw)

🌟 Creative Make hearts to give to the babies currently in NNU* 🌟 

"Bliss helps all the poorly babies and all the babies that Nessy know, and helps them feel better." - Dain

Dain was super excited when he found out he was going to be a big brother, and even more so when we found out we were expecting a girl (when we told him we were having a baby his first words were "I want it to be a sister.")

We were all shocked when we found out that my membranes had ruptured at 31+5 weeks and learning that our June baby was going to be arriving very soon was a lot to take in, especially for Dain.  Our little girl decided to stay inside though, and was eventually delivered by emergency c section at 34+1 weeks.  

Nerys was born a good size for a 34 weeker (5lbs 12!!) but was born with respiratory distress syndrome, and needed treatment to help her to breath more effectively.  This has since developed into chronic lung disease which means Nerys needs extra oxygen, and meant that she needed an extended stay in the neonatal unit.  

Leaving hospital without a baby is heartbreaking for parents, and didn't make sense to poor Dain.  We had told him he had a sister; his sister had been born, she was here, and yet he wasn't allowed to see her due to the covid 19 restrictions.  We showed him pictures and video called when we visited Nerys but it wasn't an easy thing for him to process.  

After almost three weeks, Nerys came home and Dain finally got to meet his baby sister.  It wasn't what any of us expected - no one expects to bring a baby home with an oxygen cylinder and no big brother expects to see their baby sister with tubes taped to her face - but Nerys was home and we could finally start life as a family of four.

Dain has loved being a big brother - he fetches clothes and nappies, wets the wipes, puts wet nappies in the nappy bucket and takes bottles to the kitchen when finished.  Most importantly, Dain will play with Nerys, chat to her, comfort her, sing to her and give her all the kisses and cuddles a baby sister could hope for and more.  

Ordinarily, there would have been someone from Bliss on the neo natal unit but due to covid 19 the charity's volunteers weren't able to be there is person.  The information on the website was a huge help to us though, from breastfeeding to CPR, to the latest covid guidance to coming home on oxygen.  We were very lucky that our neo natal didn't have visiting restrictions for parents during the pandemic though this isn't the case everywhere.  Bliss advocates for families where restrictions have meant parents are only getting limited time with their babies and are also representing parents - especially dads - who have maxed out their annual leave to be in hospital with their baby.  We are keen to support the work that Bliss does in supporting families like ours who have had babies born too soon or too sick.

* this was previously write and illustrate a story but this was causing too much distress. Rather than risk Dain either resent the fundraising challenge altogether or develop negative associations with writing we decided to change the activity.