Finding out that we were going to have a baby was incredibly exciting. Like other parents, we had high hopes for the future of our child. I was looking forward to games of  football, skiing holidays and doing all the other things that parents plan to do with their children. I didn't want to be too pushy a parent, but I thought that nothing would get in the way of our children achieving whatever they wanted whether its a University degree, sporting career or whatever. I planned to support them in anything they chose to do.

The pregnancy itself went quickly and at the time seemed to be normal. Looking back on it Paula and I were aware that our child wasn't a very active 'kicker', but I thought that the baby was just laid back. I had no idea that this might be a problem. With a month to go the bags for hospital weren't packed yet although we'd sorted out most of the stuff. So we were a little surprised to find ourselves up at 4:30 in the morning packing the bag as Paula was starting to go into spontaneous labour one month early. On the advice of the  hospital we took our time and had breakfast first, then drove to the hospital expecting to be told to go back home as it was a false alarm. I remember the song 'Manchild' being on the car radio on the way in which was bizarre!

Friends and family who had been through the birth process before us had told us that this would be the most amazing and joyous event. In my experience, once things started not going to plan it all got a bit nerve-wracking even though the birth was relatively smooth. The first thing is your carefully prepared birth plan, drawn up after long evenings of  National Childbirth Trust sessions, gets thrown out of the window. Water births and so forth were out of the question and Paula was closely monitored, although the midwives  were happy to let her have our baby naturally with only gas and air. The second stage seemed to go on for ever and ever but otherwise things went well, and our beautiful baby  boy was born late afternoon. His Apgar scores were good and he was immediately crying, though Paula was whisked away immediately after the birth as there were some  minor complications. I was left alone for a while with our crying baby and some very confused feelings, wanting to be with my wife. Now, we often hear how important the first cuddle and couple of hours are in the bonding process for a mother and child. Like many other things in a special needs family, she missed out on this though was back with our baby and myself later in the evening.

At first we weren't aware of any problems, though the first night found our baby wrapped thick in blankets, in an incubator against a blazing radiator in a hot room. I was too tired  to think about it at the time but I guess now that he must have been having some temperature control problems. My wife was given a bed in the transitional care ward as our baby was pre-term (although only slightly). He struggled to feed at first and we were told that this was because babies born before 37 weeks tend to have no sucking reflex. So  we learnt to give him his first feeds through a naso-gastric tube using a syringe.

The day after the birth I met my parents in the hospital reception then returned to the ward, only to find Paula and the baby had gone. The bed was empty and the  incubator was gone! A nurse quickly arrived to explain that they thought our baby had an infection so was being moved to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Looking back I probably ought to have burst into tears at this point but you sometimes find yourselves on such a treadmill you have no time for emotions, so I just went round to the unit to find my family...