Uncle

I have become an uncle for the first, and probably last time.

My wife's brother's girlfriend (WBG) gave birth to a baby boy early on Friday morning, Dec 7. The baby weighed only 600 grams and was born 3 months premature. Of course, at the moment he is in intensive care and will probably stay there for about a month, before moving into the regular premature babies ward.

The WBG announced that she was pregnant a few months ago, which got us wondering when their wedding was going to take place. As I understand it, this pregnancy was not planned, but as she is nearly 40 years old, one takes what one is given. A few weeks ago they called to say that WBG had been hospitalised as she had been leaking blood and amniotic fluid. As the pregnancy was not very far advanced (20-21 weeks), she was placed in an ordinary women's ward, and it was touch and go whether the pregnancy would be terminated. At that age, the foetus is not considered to be viable and so an abortion for medical reasons (in this case, mother's health) is definitely possible.

Our advice was to hang on and let nature take its course. One week went by, and she was sent home. Another few days found her back in another hospital, again a women's ward. The clock was slowly ticking by, and eventually the pregnancy advanced to the 24th week, at which time she was moved into the prenatal wards.

My wife was in such a ward for nearly two months, and our son was born two months premature, weighing 1.2 kg, so we do have some experience regarding these matters. Only this time, the pregnancy was about a month behind my wife's when she was hospitalised.

On Wednesday night, labour pains started, which continued through Thursday, and the birth itself was in the early hours of Friday morning. The foetus had been monitored all through the birth process and was ok, but after he was born, his heart stopped beating. He was quickly resuscitated and placed in an incubator.

I could have written about this on Friday morning, but I wasn't sure that he would survive the weekend. We were in the hospital last night and saw the relieved mother and father. Only parents are allowed into the premature babies ward, so of course we didn't see the baby (yet to be named), although we understand that he is doing as well as he can under the circumstances. A full "systems scan" will be done today to see exactly how well he is doing.