Synchronization of Us

Day 3 – It had a lovely start to it, I went along early to give some expressed milk (around 4/5am I believe) and got to have a lovely long cuddle, I just sat for a couple of hours holding her and letting her suck on my finger. We rocked in the chair and just bonded, she slept and I completely fell in love with her. I remember going back to my room and just lying on the bed smiling, I think for the first time since she was born I felt like a mum.
She was transferred to another hospital that day; the plan was for an ENT surgeon to take a proper look at her throat to see what was causing the difficulties in breathing and crying. Getting the results of that was probably one of the hardest moments in my life, I honestly really believe it was nothing and this would be over very soon.
The surgeon Dr Kubba placed a scope down her throat to see what was wrong, her vocal cords were joined together and she had webbing (known as a glottic web) around her throat. This website gives a little information about it but it’s hard to find information about it.
With her vocal cords joined she would never be able to talk but the webbing was the biggest worry as it was very restrictive to her airways, her air hole was around 10 times smaller than it should be. She would not be able to survive with out surgery, as she got older and more active her body would not be to handle it.
Dr Kubba was going to separate the vocal cords and remove the webbing; cartilage from her ribcage was going to be used to keep the cords apart. Surgery was a big deal with her being so young and we were told that at the first sign of trouble they would perform a tracheotomy , we were made aware of how serious the situation was and that the chance of her getting a tracheotomy was very high. Thankfully it would be temporary (for about a year) but would mean a long hospital stay and a lot of home care for us. He planned the surgery for the Monday (it was Friday) but warned us that they may need to do emergency surgery if she got worse.
We left the room in shock; neither of us were expecting it and went to inform our families. I will always feel so bad for the way I told my parents calling and immediately hanging up in tears, they really must have expected the worse. DH called back and explained to them.
Eventually DH went home, we maybe could of arranged for him to stay but to be honest I think he needed his space that night and in a way so did i. I spent the evening in an emotional mess, my milk came through and I was leaking everywhere and in so much pain still from the birth. One of my most vivid memories from the evening is taking a bath and going along to the common room to watch a Big Brother eviction something I loved doing. I never made it to the end, at that exact moment it seemed to pointless and stupid and completely unimportant. I went back to my room had a wee cry then went and spent some time with my daughter, letting her suck on my fingers in her incubator till she went to sleep.

Day 4 – The weekend passed with no problem, Rebecca remained stable and was doing ok, We just spent what time with her we could taking her out for a cuddle whenever we were allowed. I just remember how much she would struggle for breath sometimes especially when she would get upset.

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