During the night in the early hours, we were caught out and had a rush job to the local hospital. Lindsey was rushed into theatre as Imogen was in distress. There was I, left all alone in a small side room, not having a clue what was happening. There was not a soul about due to the early hour. A nurse appeared after about 15 minutes and advised me that mum and baby were fine. She told me that baby was resuscitated and successfully intubated * on a ventilator and mum was sleeping like a baby herself, still out of it with morphine. The nurse didn’t volunteer the information I was seeking… boy or girl? “Oh!! She said, “I forgot to look”. Moments later a cleaner walked by and said, “Are you dad? You had a girl”.


12 hour old Imogen be cared for by Doctors and Nurses.

Imogen was tiny and looked oblivious and frail in her incubator. She had a vent tube down her throat and was covered with wires and connected to monitors and buzzers a plenty. We had no idea what sats * or BP was, (blood pressure). All we remember was a buzzer going off at regular intervals and numbers frantically flashing. This was an indication as to how poorly Imogen was, each alarm putting us in fear, but we were reassured by the nurse that all was fine. We later knew that the nurse had a good poker face. A transport team from St. Mary’s arrived, tending to Imogen and trying to stabilize her before they could put her into the ambulance for the 60 mile journey to Manchester to be handed to the Intensive Care Unit.

* INTUBATE: To put a tube into a hollow organ or passageway, often into the airway.

* SATS: Common abbreviation for saturation levels referring to the percentage of oxygen found in the blood.