Miracle mum Bianca shares Kyren's story:

After 4 years of TTC, chronic illness & a year of IVF we were finally pregnant with our miracle baby. I had a wonderful pregnancy; I would pinch myself every day & had always looked forward to giving birth & labouring naturally. At 28 weeks I attended a routine growth scan & it was there they discovered my baby had severe IUGR & abnormal dopplers. My care was transferred to FSH & I was to attend twice weekly appointments to track bubby. It was at one of those appointments they discovered I had preeclampsia & was hospitalized from 29w. Bubby's dopplers became worse & he continued to drop weight. I was closely monitored for what felt like a very long 4 weeks, the aim was to get me to 34w, but I could see things were changing. I'm a nurse myself so being familiar with the system was a blessing but also a curse. For a week prior to my baby's birth, I noticed his HR dip down further than first admission. I was strapped to that CTG sometimes 8hrs a day due to never meeting criteria. One afternoon I began to feel unwell, I shrugged it off, ate something & tried to nap. But it only got worse & I knew something was happening, I had noticed that morning that my belly had dropped & was looking a lot smaller.

I got the midwives to check my vitals & they discovered my BP was 170s despite taking my antihypertensive and hour prior. They rushed me to the birth suite where they monitored me closely for 7 hours. I had then arrived in eclampsia territory & due to the baby being in distress they performed an emergency cesarean. At 3.24am 17/8/24 our miracle baby Kyren Jack Dann was born. Dad announced he was a boy & he was rushed to be checked over. My husband went with Kyren to NICU while I went to recovery & then ICU. A rollercoaster of emotions after birth is an understatement, let alone a NICU baby & mum in ICU. I stayed in ICU for 30 odd hours, in that time I pumped as much as I could, cried over spilt milk but I was determined to Breastfeed my boy.

Many hiccups along the way, Kyren was transferred to RGH at 2w old. He was meant to be discharged at 4w but the minute we walked in with the pram he turned blue & the staff called a code blue, we witnessed it all. Many desats & bradycardia episodes, I felt like I was never going to bring my baby home. But we did, on 23/9/24 our miracle came home.

I'm living the dream now with my beautiful precious boy. Sometimes I can lead myself down a dark train of thought, wondering what's wrong with me and why this all happened to me. I'm still very much grieving a "normal" birth experience, but when I do, I just look down at those big, beautiful eyes & count my blessings.