When I woke up, it was still dark outside. I had no idea what time it was or how long I had been in surgery. My pain was different now, centred on a fresh caesarean scar. The anaesthetist came to see me and explained: my uterus had ruptured. Our baby had needed prolonged resuscitation and had been transferred to a tertiary hospital for intensive neonatal care. He held my hand. He looked both sorry and shaken. I was still under the effects of the anaesthetic and could not fully grasp what he was saying.

Then my partner was allowed in. His face was pale, broken. He told me what he had witnessed — the sounds of resuscitation echoing through the walls, not knowing if it was for me or for our baby. He heard them call “HRP” and, in panic, looked up placental abruption on his phone. He saw staff coming out of the operating room crying, fainting. He saw the OBGYN walk past, leaving footprints of blood down the hallway.

And he told me how long it took to bring our baby back. I remember thinking, “thirty minutes… he’s doomed”. It all felt surreal — none of it hit me. I was floating in a bad, hazy dream where nothing made sense.

I remember lying there, half-conscious, already spiralling. I even remember imagining getting a tattoo to honor him if he died — a heartbeat line near my c-section scar? The thought horrified me, but I couldn’t stop it. Fear had already taken over.

I called my family and my closest friends in tears.  Those calls were the opposite of everything I had dreamed. Instead of “It’s a boy, he’s perfect!” it was “Something went horribly wrong.

Gradually, more details emerged. During the surgery, they had discovered a complete uterine rupture, heavy internal bleeding, and my baby was expelled into the abdomen. They had managed to repair my uterus, but I quickly understood that a future pregnancy was not guaranteed. Otto may be the only child I bring into this world, and he might not even survive.

The next day, once stable, I was transferred by ambulance to the hospital where Otto was being treated. Every bump in the road pulled on my fresh cesarean scar. When I finally arrived, a midwife helped with the formalities, and then my partner came to wheel me down to NICU.

I entered his room and the fact I had always wanted a girl suddenly seemed so dumb. My body filled with a sense of divine knowing, and I remember just thinking “but of course, it’s you, it’s always been you”, HE was the love of my life.

He was lying there, tiny and still, covered in tubes and lines, cooled to protect his brain from further injury. I felt an enormous guilt and sadness that his first days of life had already been filled with such trauma. 

That night I cried, I didn’t want to eat, or sleep, I felt I had failed, and I just wanted to disappear. But the following morning, I woke with determination; my baby was still here, there was still hope, and he needed me. So I picked myself up and switched into action mode. I scheduled a consultation with the lactation consultant, inhaled my meals, drank as much water as I could and pumped regularly. I did not care about myself, but I cared for Otto, more than anything, and he needed me to be healthy and eat nutritiously to give him the best start. From then on, I never left his side for more than an hour at a time. My fingers were still crossed from the days before, and I kept them crossed, hoping for him to be healthy, even through nappy changes. I needed the universe to hear my plea.

Skin to skin was promoted in NICU for its benefits, and so when he was stable enough, we did as much as we could, around 8h a day between us, as many cuddles as possible in the hopes it would benefit him somehow. 

As the days went by, there were small milestones that gave us hope: opening his eyes and watching us, gaining weight, holding our finger and being responsive. We were overjoyed and celebrated each moment, but were reminded by the doctors that all of these were archaic muscle movements, and were not correlated to his capacity for controlled motor movements later on.

The tests began. He had episodes of seizures, both on the monitors and visibly in his body, with convulsions and abnormal eye movements. He was started on antiseizure medication. We were encouraged to bring our parents to meet him, and it became more and more evident that the staff did not expect him to be leaving the hospital. I remember putting the pieces together, the way they spoke, the hand prints and photos they offered to take, they were preparing us to say goodbye.

The stress of NICU was intense. I had been twice to the ER, waking up in sweats, pain in my lower back, absolutely freezing in the middle of July, but they couldn’t find anything; it was anxiety from waiting for his results.

The first MRI showed concerning changes, but not the pattern they expected for a typical lack-of-oxygen event. We were told we would need to wait for a second MRI after some days to understand the full extent of the injuries. Those days were full of hope and dread.