The text on Thursday 5 May at 5.02pm: “C is in recovery. Baby is excellent. Cried when born. Breathing on his own. 1.7kg. He is healthy and lanky. C will be going to level 4 soon”.
And so I emailed a few friends the extraordinary news … “on Thursday we become grandparents – it’s all a rather bizarre story. We found out about 3 weeks ago that our son’s 18 year old girlfriend was pregnant – she’d neglected to tell anyone – her mother only knew a week ahead of us. Baby was due 3 July but expected to be brought on early because of some issues.
“Anyway we’d barely digested this, hadn’t told anyone as we waited for him to come up from Dunedin for the Easter hols. Then he went back, and we told my parents, his brothers etc. On Thursday I had a text from the girlfriends’ mother to say that C was going into delivery as the baby was showing signs of distress. Baby Gordon as he is currently known was delivered by C-section on Thursday weighing in at 1.7kg (about 3.7 pounds) which is ok apparently for a 32 week prem baby. He went into surgery that night to have intestines pushed back into his tummy – a condition called gastroschsis (spelling probably wrong) but is doing well.
“He’s in an incubator and wired up with lots of tubes. He had a breathing tube in for the surgery but that may well come out today (that was Saturday – and that happened). From a medical point of view, everyone seems pleased with him so far – inevitably there’s some uncertainties with prem babies about how they do.
“It’s all quite surreal – he will be in hospital for up to 8 weeks to bring him up to term. What happens next we don’t know. There is talk of adoption – probably our preference – but I’d totally understand if they can’t give him away. It’s all soooo complicated – we’re aiming for our son to finish this half year at Otago at least. So guess we will be paying lots of airfares over next 8 weeks!”
And so today (Sunday) – we visited again. We watched with fascination as the nurse checked him over. All that technology supporting one wee life. He had his urinary cathetcr removed so he can wee by himself.
So many steps to go through. His bowel may not work for another week or so.
It’s exciting, weird and very depressing in some ways – the future unknowable!
