Just for Dads

“It was overwhelming having a baby in intensive care. I wondered if I really understood what was happening, what was it I should be doing or how was I meant to feel? For me it was so far from what was meant to be the 'norm'. Over the months of watching this tiny person grow things slowly settled down. Through the challenges and hard news, we saw our son slowly reach the stage when we could take him home.”  Anthony - Dad to Caden born at 29 weeks and Eli at 25 weeks.

As a new dad, you will have experienced a range of emotions surrounding the birth of your baby. If your baby requires intensive care you may be finding the experience overwhelming and stressful.

Focus can often be on the mother and baby and sometimes dad’s are in danger of being overlooked. You may feel intense worry about the health of your baby and partner; you may have other children at home to look after as well as maintaining your work commitments. This may not be how you expected fatherhood to be and it can be an especially hard time.

You may feel you need to be strong for your baby and partner, disappointed that you cannot visit the NICU as much as your partner because of work commitments or have concerns of hurting your baby because of your size and strength. Miracle Babies Foundation understands what dads are going through and we are here for you.

You may be interested in speaking to someone, particularly another dad who has also experienced the NICU. Dads are also very welcome and encouraged to use our support services including attending NurtureTime and coming along to NurtureGroup. We understand that unlike women, men are not always good at finding someone to talk to and often carry their fears and concerns on their own. Please do not be afraid to ask for help.

You may down the track want to get involved in an event or a fundraising activity with other dads, this is a great way of supporting each other, as well as making a very useful contribution to other miracle babies and their families.

Here, Angus Fontaine, a writer, describes the tumult he and his wife of two years, Karen, endured when their son, Noah, arrived nine weeks premature.

For us, the final 63 days of pregnancy – big kicks, baby showers, basketball silhouettes – was zapped down to 63 minutes. It began as Karen’s sob from the bathroom, took in a land-speed record for home-to-hospital shuttling and ended with a doctor’s ultimatum: deliver now or else.

These are the moments in which men give birth. They bite down hard and turn jellied muscle to molten steel. They dam tears, hunt courage and build bridges. They man up. I took a moment, closed my eyes and found my mettle. This was the moment. My dewy vision of fatherhood was now a frantic jungle of wires, needles and nurses. My soundtrack was the trip-hammer beat of my son’s tremulous heart coming home on the red tide. What else can a man do but hold his girl’s hand and hold steady as the storm comes in?

That birth was the start of a tempest that raged 40 days and 40 nights. After Noah was cut from his mother’s belly – less than two kilograms of mewling miracle – the nurses wrapped him in plastic, lit him under heat lamps and wheeled him to what would become our new home, headquarters and base camp: the newborn care centre at the Royal Hospital for Women in Randwick.

Walking into that arena of hope, glory and anguish – all the little babies like skinned rabbits in their humidicribs, their poor parents pressed up against the glass, midwives moving between them like landlocked angels – I realised how lucky we were.

Noah’s little ark was moored in level three of intensive care, where every hour is desperate. But I knew he was fine – small, yes, but perfectly formed. It was his tiny bedfellows who had borne the greater brunt – they were wired up to higher powers, their parents sharing vigil with grave-faced doctors.

They say purgatory is the state between heaven and hell, a place of soul cleansing by fire. I was in it. In those early days, Karen and I could only touch Noah for a few minutes for fear of over-stimulating him. That was hard. But, in a ward of wailing infants and clucking mums, seeing Karen’s arms empty for 23 hours and 45 minutes was worse.

As Noah graduated to level two and we spent more time together, I saw my son for what he was. His little legs still kicked like a sick cricket – but to his father he was a golden-haired god in a size00000 jumpsuit. When he dictated the terms of his release – tearing off his nappy and kicking it to the side – I couldn’t have been more proud.

When we passed out of hospital shadow into sun for the first time and Here Comes The Sun came on the radio I’m not ashamed to say a couple of fat, salty tears broke from me. Fourteen months on, Noah weighs six times what he did at birth and is set to walk. He’s a little man and I’m a giant. We’re a family and every day is a rainbow.