A Fathers story: Nicu survivor, prematurity, loss, and covid

After the loss of Oliver and in the previous blogs, you all know that he was due to come to the Demelza hospice. Well Oliver arrived there the day after he passed, and we received the phone call that morning saying we could go and see him.  Apprehensive I wasn't sure if I wanted to go and see Oliver, the thoughts crossed my mind, would he look the same as when I left him in hospital, and what would be different. It was the unknown that made me extremely anxious, and I did speak to Frances about this.  I had, had this perfect image of him not only the day before of him so peaceful and calm looking that I didn't want to poison that image with another one that wouldn't look the same. I didn't even know if I wanted family to go and see him, I didn't want my son to be a show thing to just go and see, but at the same time they were his family and had the right to pay respects. In a brief conversation myself and Frances decided that family could come and see Oliver one las

18th August: Going home. Where to start, we'll driving home after saying goodbye to Oliver there was just this sence of numbness. There was this cloud of negativity hovering over us all, its as if we wanted to talk about what just happened, but we also didn't.  Emotions where very high to say the least, I remember just updating my Facebook post to let everyone who had been such a support network to me know the sad news. I guess this was my way of proccesing it, throughout Oliver being alive I always updated Facebook to keep people posted, so thats what I done. The first moments home just didn't feel completely right. We got through the door and took up our suit cases, and then just looked at eachother. Nothing was said, but I gave Frances a big cuddle and then we went downstairs. I belive I had something strong to drink just to ease myself, Frances just sat on her phone, probably to just take her mind of everything that had just happened.  The whole day was just trying to f

So, I have been putting this one of for sometime now, waiting for the right moment to take the time to write it. It's taken me a good few attempts to do parts, and then to come back and add more over the last few days. However I have come to Finnish it, and although this is the end of olivers story, it's not the end of his legacy. Olivers story has radiated with so many, and in some future blogs you will see how loosing a child has effected myself and family, but how oliver has influenced good and charitable work. Please read this with caution and please leave feedback, this has been hard to Finnish, but worth it for me. It has brought me to tears, but most of all its brought me clarity and a weight feels like its been lifted, this has been an amazing way to deal with my bereavement, and I highly recommend this as a way to help manage the loss of a child. Nothing really seemed real at this point, it was like you were doing something that every cell in your body was against. The

17th August: The day before. After an exhausting and emotionally draining weekend, with highs of family visiting and lows of knowing why they where there, myself and Frances where completely drained.  This was going to be our final full day with Oliver and we knew it, but most of all we felt it. The struggle to find any sence of happiness was overwhelmed by the sadness of knowing that tomorrow we will be saying goodbye to our son.  Making our way into the hospital together was undescribable. For us this was out of the ordinary, not so unordinary for couples outside of covid, but we had never been able to see Oliver together unless it was bad news. Although the situation was an averwhelmingly sad situation, for us this was the first time together we got to spend the whole day with our son and that was special to us. We had a professional photographer come and take some lovely photos of us, and as nice as this was I couldn't help but think soon this is all we will have, j

15th August: After the meetings and the desicion to move forward with paletive care, things moved fairly fast. I made my feelings rather clear that if it was going to happen then it needed to happen within the next few days. The reason for this was because it would have been torture on us to prolong oliver, knowing what we know. Do I regret rushing it, yes, yes I do, but I know why I felt like I had to and as above, it would have been so hard on us knowing at some point we would have to decide when olivers time was up. In my mind the faster the better as not to prolong the pain and the burden of seeing him in the position he was in, or to extend our pain of loosing our son. (Hope that makes sence) But it is something that I think about allot, what if we had waited another week, we could have had more time, more cuddles, but that would have been greedy. To hold onto him for another week or so would have been nice, but realisticly it was time. On the 15th we got a special little room, in

12th August: The Meeting. I'm not really sure how to start this blog as it's going to be one of the hardest ones I have had to do. Being so close to the end of olivers story is difficult in itself, but there's a few more blogs before it is complete. I'm going to start this of with a picture. Myself and Frances hardly slept a wink knowing we had a meeting for Oliver, we also didn't know what the meeting was for, and that didn't help. Waking up on the 12th August, deprived of sleep and feeling all sorts of emotions, stress, anxiety and just downright sad, we left for the hospital. On the way to the meeting me and Frances discussed what the meeting could be about. What if they was giving us an end date he could go home or what if they had solved his airway dilemma, just some of the theories we had. We also had the theories that we didn't want to think about, what if he needed more surgery, what if he was going to be in there for a longer time than e