Kyan

Lauren’s pregnancy went very slow for us. Slow for her as she was so sick all of the time (well except for about two weeks when she
‘blossomed’) and slow for me as I could not wait to meet our baby (and for Lauren to feel better again).

Poor Lauren didn’t have a good time at all. She felt nausea throughout her first trimester, and into her second, and then was really sick
in her third trimester. I often woke to the sound of her being sick in the bathroom.

Because our baby had been diagnosed with duodenal atresia, Lauren had excess fluid build up throughout her pregnancy. This was due to the
fact that there was a gap in the baby’s digestive system so baby wasn’t taking in the amniotic fluid like other babies. This also made Lauren very big. We found out later that friends and family often compared ‘size’ stories once Lauren had left the room! When she was 34 weeks pregnant, she was measuring 42 weeks!! The doctors had told us that the baby would probably come early due to this, but we didn’t expect him to be THAT early…

It was the end of August and I had just spent the last two days painting our new bathroom and the nursery. I was excited because I had just one more coat of paint to do the next day and then the wallpaper border. The baby must also have been excited because Lauren’s waters started to break at 1am that morning. She was one day away from being 35 weeks. After a long wait in the delivery suite, the midwives decided the baby was not quite ready and sent Lauren up to the ward.  At 9pm the following night (Saturday – exactly 35 weeks) Lauren’s waters not only broke, they gushed! Her nightgown went from having gaps between buttons to suddenly looking huge and hanging off her!

After a lot of pushing (with no help – no gas or air or ANYTHING) Lauren was struggling to get the baby out. They called in a team and prepared to ‘kiwi’ the baby. They hardly had to pull before he started to come out. The doctor saw that the cord was wrapped around his neck twice, so Lauren had to stop pushing while he cut the umbilical cord (while he was only half out!).  When he was finally out,  the midwife softly said “It’s a boy!”.  I started to cry. I kept saying to Lauren over and over “It’s a boy! It’s a boy!” . I had a feeling the whole way through the
pregnancy that it was going to be a boy but I didn’t realise until he was born how badly I had WANTED a boy! It was definitely the best feeling in the world to finally have a son. We looked him over quickly before they wrapped him and when asked if we had a name we looked at each other and said “are we going for Kyan?”.

They placed Kyan in Lauren’s arms for a quick cuddle, which was lovely, as we had expected him to be taken straight to neonatal. It was
definitely love at first sight for both of them. I could not have been more proud of my lovely wife – she had given us the most gorgeous little boy.

Kyan was taken to neonatal straight away and checked out. Seeing as Lauren was exhausted and looked like she was going to sleep, I
slipped off to see Kyan. I checked him over – counted his fingers and toes, took pictures of every bit of him and even took a short video. I couldn’t wait to show Lauren what she had created.

The following day the ANTS (acute neonatal transfer service) came to collect Kyan and take him to Great Ormond Street for his operation. And thus began the next chapter of our lives.