To employers.
Having a small baby on special cares, puts a lot of pressure onto parents lives. Personal and with work. Trying to maintain a balance is very hard for any new parent, but for parents of premature babies the task is even more an up-hill struggle. It is made worse when the baby is in one hospital and the mother at another, and also if there are other children involved.
Please be patient with your employer, being a new parent to a premature baby is very hard especially in the first few months. And things do go wrong. Kirsty was regularly in hospital for short visits and this can and does affect work.
When Kirsty was bought home I asked for just over a week off. Because of all the up-hill struggle of the past months, I had the Thursday off, but by the Monday found that I was no "no longer required" this was a major blow in a situation that was both highly stressful and to continue to be so for quite a few months. All I ask of you is that if you value your employees then please be patient. This is a time when parents have to be parents and also "nurses and doctors too"
Relatives and friends.
Seeing a small baby on a special care baby unit is not very nice. And by these pages we hope to have given you some insight to what to expect. (My mother with Amy the first time she saw her, her reaction was to burst into tears. This was some thing to do with loosing my first son from my first marriage and also the shock at seeing Amy.)
The special care unit is not a nice place to be, but it is an important part of the babies care and survival. We hoped through these pages that things are not all bad, and whilst some babies do not survive the success rate through modern cares is now very high. Please help your son / daughter through these times. They need all the help they can get.
To parents.
Your baby is special and needs your love and support. No life is not easy and that bonding is a problem. It does come and time will only tell the future. To both new mums and dads, you can both suffer from depression and also mixed emotions. It is important to take a step back and look at yourselves and if you can get a chance to take time out together do so.
You tend to find that you both take separate courses sometimes that can lead to problems in a marriage. Remember you are a couple as well as parents.
If you are a Dad and feel like you feel like you have let the side down and don't want to know the baby Please, Please that little bundle needs your love and affection as well. By these pages we have hoped to have shown you that there is life at the end of the tunnel and things do get better, only time will tell.
To all.
We hope that this site has been a help to all. We hope that from our suffering and what we went through, we can show other people about the ups-and-downs of "premi" life. A life that is not always easy. There are parents that are a lot worse off than us and with children with more problems than Kirsty. If you are just visiting this site before a premi birth or have just had one and want to know more, if you want to talk we are here to help.
Sincerely John Stanton Kirsty's Dad and Webmaster pre-maturebaby.com