The Story So Far

Well, here is a quick run down of James' first four months of life, and why we have set up this Blog Site.

7th March 2008 - James Alexander Whale was born at 12.16am weighing 7lbs3oz and perfect in every way. Went home from Wellington Hospital that afternoon to meet the rest of the family.

8th March 2008 - James started to become unsettled at 2am when he refused his feed. He wasn't unhappy, didn't have a fever, and wasn't crying. He just wasn't settling. At around 5am he started to make a strange, rhythmic grunting sound, but still wasn't unhappy. At half past six he began to cough up a little blood, and we called the midwife and hospital. The hospital told us to go to the local A and M and wait until it opened at 8am. Our midwife (thank heavens) told us to call an ambulance and take him straight back to the hospital, which we did. We waited for half an hour in the postnatal ward for a docter so see James, and when she did, she bolted, dashing back a moment later and hauling us down to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. In the elevator on the way down, James started to have almost constant seizures, and stopped breathing.

Suffice to say the next 24 hours were beyond description. James' chances of surviving were very poor, and he was grey and heaving with each ventilated breath. He had lines in every limb, into nose and throat, even into his little belly button. The amazing docters and nurses in the NICU fought very hard to keep James alive, and in the end, between them and James' stuborn nature, they won.

It turns out James had contracted Strep Pnumococcus, which had turned to blood poisoning and meningitus. This killer disease has an awfully high mortality rate in children and the elderly, and James, at not even two days old, beat the odds.

22nd March 2008 - After two weeks in Neonates, and IV antibiotics, various drugs and a lot of prayers, James went home a second time, this time to stay.

26th March 2008 - We discovered that the meningitus had left James deaf in both ears, a deafness which was to get worse over the next few months.