15th Oct 2020

The birth of my son and a day that shook my world. 

I’ve always assumed that everything would be fine when my wife and I have had our babies, and that i'd never be one of those heartbroken parents you see on tv. That was until 10.10pm on 15th October 2020.

My son Olly was happy throughout the labour, but was born fairly quickly and in the process his little body unexpectedly shut down. The blue light buzzer was activated shortly after he was born and a team of consultants, doctors and midwives rushed in from nowhere to whisk him out of our labour room and onto a resuscitation table in the corridor. I followed them out, naturally concerned for my son.

I never imagined seeing my baby's blue, lifeless body artificially breathed into whilst doctors listened via a stethoscope to grasp a heartbeat. I also knew that the longer this went on the less chance there would be of us having that moment every proud father gets, walking out of the hospital ready for that journey home. 

A horrendous 15 minutes went by before I saw his chest rise unaided, although only shallow movements.

That moment has made me eternally grateful to all the staff at the NICU, Luton and Dunstable Hospital. 

Over the next few hours Olly had several seizures and had to be cooled down to 33.5 degrees in order to stop any further damage occurring to his brain from the first seizure. I counted over 16 cables/tubes heading into his tiny body. But gradually over the next few days these reduced one by one. 

While Olly was in NICU I met Jean Egyepong, a consultant looking after our boy. He sat with us for over an hour and discussed what Olly had been through. Despite our bleak outlook, Jean remained positive and reassured us that Olly was heading in the right direction towards a good recovery. In these moments with Jean we began to feel more hopeful that better days would come.

As each day passed, Olly carried on defying the odds and went from strength to strength. Everybody we met that looked after Olly was so upbeat and full of positivity, it was hard to stay downbeat.

After seeing firsthand the amazing work that the NICU team does, we would like to give something back to help other families who find themselves and their babies in the same position that we did.

Jean explained about the procedure used to monitor Olly in those first few minutes of him being born. We relied on a doctor intermittently stopping resuscitation in order to listen with a stethoscope for a heart beat and if present count the heart rate. This process is slow and every now and again pauses the resuscitation process In turn this pauses the oxygen delivery that is needed for vital organs.

Now, there is particular machine out on the market that can do all the above instantly but unfortunately there wasn’t the money in the trust to buy these machines.

Back in December 2019 Jean had a quote for 3 of these machines, 2 for theatre and one in the event like I needed for emergency situations which could be stored in a mobile emergency bag ready to go. 

Therefore I am asking for any donation towards my goal of raising £24,000 to pay for all 3 of these machines. Nobody expects to be in the situation I was in but I hope that with the help of your donation the survival odds are increased for every baby needing emergency treatment at the Luton and Dunstable hospital.

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

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