5th August: pink turtle, smiles and Tattoos.

5th August: Things were getting ontop of us by now, the stress and anxiety had reached an uncomfortable level. Still fighting olivers battle, but by now we were fighting our own battles. Exhaustion, depression and fear where an everyday occurance.

I remember Frances texting me on this day, saying she just needed to be alone. She said she wasn't OK and she was worried about Oliver. She decided to take herself out for a drive to clear her head, and if that's what she needed to do then that's what she needed to do. Her mum asked her to come home and talk about it, I even asked her to talk about it, but she wanted to be alone. As hard as that was to deal with because we all wanted to be there to help her, it was just something you have to go through, Lord knows I have since needed some time on my own.

Further on in the day tho we got a picture of olivers belly, it looked so much better. At the time we knew we Still had a long time to wait for it to be fully healed, and to get his feeds going again. We didn't know how worse it was going to get!.

6th August: oliver was doing well, only requiring 21% oxygen. His wight was also improving, Oliver was now 6lb 25oz.

Full term babies are born similar weight, but Oliver was far from being healthy enough to come home. You try not to make the comparison, but you can't help but think it. Comparing him to that of a new born just because he is similar weight gives you all sorts of emotions of what if.

Also 43cm long.

7th August: Oliver had his physiotherapy today and they were impressed with his head movements.

They gave Oliver a pink rubber, squishy turtle to play with, so he could squeeze it in his hands. Let me tell you he had so much fun playing with this that at the end of the session they couldn't get it off him. (P.s I still have this)

10th managed to get a video of Oliver having a smile, I can't tell you how significant this video means, or what it meant at the time. This was a first for all of us to see, and I managed to get it on video. It's only small and for a brief second, and the other smiles he done around the same time were bigger, but this was the only one I got on video.

You might say I am nieve and that it's wind, but this was the positivity I needed to know he was fighting and pulling through. I know it could have been wind, but why couldn't it have been a genuine smile, a sign to say daddy, I'm OK.

                    

  11th August: oliver was still gaining weight, growing to a total of 6.614lb. Myself and Frances went out this day into London to get some food, while sitting eating our food the thought popped into head, let's get Tattoos. Without hesitation we decided we was going to. Onto Google and within minuts it was booked, we'd had it done.

 

Living on a high for a brief afternoon, feeling like we was slightly normal, we found out we had a meeting the next day to discuss Oliver. We didn't know what this meeting was about, but we was both invited. Previous experience has taught us, when we are both about to attend it's not usually good news. Let's say we didn't sleep easy.

Next, ⚠️  we can't make that choice, the hardest decision we have ever had to face.