Jessica Hannah

Blair Bear

After my waters had broke at work, I drove myself to my local hospital in Casino. Once they knew  I wasn’t going to give birth, I was transferred to Brisbane Mater Mothers hospital by the Royal Flying Doctors. Everything was quite surreal like I was living someone else’s life. I still remember the anxious wait for my partner to arrive at the hospital. Thankfully he was able to find accommodation at Ronald McDonald House across the road. I was on bed rest in hospital for 5 days until I went into labour in the wee hours of the morning. 

At 4:30am on 8/2/2017 Blair David John Hannah was born naturally, weighing 788g at 25+1 gestation. 

I can’t remember much after he was born, probably because I was in shock but I do remember being wheeled down to the NICU and the whole ordeal was terrifying. All the babies were so tiny. There were so many alarms going off and each amazing nurse was assigned two babies each to care for. 

I still remember my first cuddle on Valentines Day. We put my engagement ring on him and it fit all the way up his arm. Just goes to show how tiny these warriors are. 

He fought a long hard road for 75 days including open heart surgery TWICE for a PDA. Unfortunately he was never strong enough to come off the ventilator and after several resuscitations we had to make a decision about what we wanted to do next. But in an extremely odd way, Blair ended up removing his own tube and we took this as a sign to not intervene anymore. 

We were blown away by the support we had received from Amy at Miracle Mumma and the whole NICU community.  

I’m walking in memory of our Blair Bear and his buddy Morgan, affectionately known as Morgy. 

The only plus side to NICU life was meeting other Premmie parents who became friends that will last forever, including our favourite NICU nurse Stacey Annand and Blair’s Dr, Kirsty Devine at Mater Mothers Brisbane. 

We will be forever greatful for what they did for our Blair Bear x