BABIES ‘Such a shock seeing Ollie in an incubator’

Baby’s name: Oliver Brian George Wright. Date and place of birth: February 17 at 6.25pm at Prince Charles Hospital, Merthyr Tydfil. Weight: 7lb 8oz. Parents: Kayleigh Louise Hopkins, 28, from Pontypridd, and dad Matthew Wright, 32, a construction worker, from Taffs Well. Mum’s story: “We were both relieved for the birth to happen, but absolutely petrified of something going wrong during delivery.

“I was induced as I was carrying triple the amount of amniotic fluid than is deemed normal.

“Ollie was measuring big for his dates and had ectopic heartbeats detected so it was decided it would be safer to induce my labour under controlled circumstances.

“I was especially scared as Ollie is our ‘rainbow baby’ (a baby born after losing a child). Ollie was induced and born on the exact date I lost my baby exactly a year before. That date now has such meaning for us.

“I will never forget the moment I started to push as at that moment Wales had its first mini-earthquake for years. I can truly say the earth shook the day Ollie was born!

“In the postnatal ward I got increasingly worried that he was making a grunting noise and not making any attempt to feed no matter how much I tried. Nurses checked his vitals but they seemed OK so they assumed he was just tired after delivery.

“I grew increasingly concerned, though, as he still wasn’t making attempts to feed after nine hours. After they checked his observations again to find them OK, I insisted on a second opinion. The doctor did bloods as a precaution only, due to observations being stable.

“Soon enough his bloods came back to find he could not shift CO2 off his lungs. Hence the grunting. Also that he had an infection somewhere in his body.

“He was rushed down to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to be treated with oxygen and antibiotics.

“I was both scared and relieved at this point. I didn’t know how bad the infection was but I knew he was in the right place.

“When I first went to visit him in NICU a few hours later it was a shock – tubes through his nose to feed and in an incubator.

“It was not what I expected of such a chunky baby. He spent four agonising days in NICU being treated for an infection.

“On day two it was found he had the deadly Strep B infection. If not caught early this infection can kill a newborn.

“On day four he was allowed up on the ward with me but we weren’t out of the woods yet. Ollie had bad jaundice, requiring two days of intense phototherapy.

“This I struggled with. With phototherapy, babies have to be under it constantly and only removed for a feed, meaning I could not cuddle my baby as much as I liked in order to bond.

“But it didn’t last forever. On day 10 from induction we were allowed home after seven days of antibiotics.

“Taking him home felt like such a relief.

“Finally we can begin to be a family properly. And he can bond with his big brother Emilios.