Thank You from Baby Sam!

TL;DR: These guys did us a solid, please help them if you can.

Most of you know that our little bubba came a few weeks earlier than we expected last weekend, after a pregnancy where everything minor that could be tricky (extreme fatigue, sickness, covid in the 3rd trimester..) was Sam the drama baby decided that he would carry on in this vein.

He was born with quite bad jaundice and was treated in the maternity hospital and 5 days after I went in we got home with his levels under control but unfortunately he developed a severe eye infection the next day which left him feeling too poorly to eat and his jaundice levels shot up and his eye was really poorly. At 4 days old was admitted to the Sheffield Children's Hospital NSU to treat both and I was distraught. I had to take my tiny baby into A&E without his dad, having had nearly no sleep since my waters went 6 days before. Luckily I think the staff realised I was scaring the other patients and we got moved through to an assessment ward and dad let in pretty quickly after that.

The next morning Sam was transferred to the NSU for treatment for his eye and the jaundice which had turned him into a little Simpson, when this happened I was told it would be half an hour later than expected because they were sorting me out somewhere to stay. After attempting to sleep on a leather recliner in the A&E ward and being grateful for it I presumed they meant another one of these or camp bed and was over the moon with this. How wrong I was!

We then moved to the NSU and I was taken and shown where I could stay in Magnolia house run by the Sick Children's Trust and it was amazing! It was half way between a B&B and my own house which was perfect. Admittedly, for the first night I was desperate to not leave my baby because clearly all the trained nurses weren't going to be able to look after him as well as me, a first time mother of 4 days! But after a lot of reassurance and encouragement from the hospital staff I went and had a nap there and a shower and woke up a new woman, then the next night I got a proper nights sleep in anticipation of brining drama boy home and this set me up amazingly for that.

The room was lovely as were the staff. I felt like I was going mad when Sam was admitted to the NSU and being able to stay so close to him but also look after myself a little bit saved me - if you've got any spare pennies please can you give to them, all parents deserve to be able to stay with their tiny little people when they need them the most.