About us

 
I am Laura, Mum to Andrew.

Andrew's claim to fame is not that was he was born at 29 weeks weight less than a bag of sugar (actually 1lb 6oz) - but that if we weren't being filmed for a television show at the time, he might not have made it at all.

We featured on Cherry Has A Baby, a show celebrating motherhood through the ages. The film crew should have attended a scheduled scan at 27 weeks, but were called away to film the birth of another baby. They contacted our hospital, who agreed to a further scan at 28 weeks at which they would film. It was during that scan that we were told my placental bloodflow problems had worsened, and Andrew would need to come very early. They jabbed me with steroids (have you seen the size of those needles?) which gained us a window, and Andrew arrived one week later.

He spent 11 weeks in NICU, graduating from the  ventilator, then CPAP, then oxygen, flinging the nasal tubes off just a couple of days before discharge. He was still very small, there was evidence of a bleed on his brain, and he failed the Newborn Hearing screening.

Fast-forward five years.

Andrew was diagnosed with Auditory Neuropathy about a month after discharge. He has been wearing hearing aids, but is currently rejecting them as he does have some residual hearing - he just cannot hear speech patterns. He also has a severe learning delay, and was more recently diagnosed with classic childhood Autism. He had a brief dalliance with a form of epilepsy, which was resolved with steroids, but we remain on watch for other forms developing as he grows up.

He is an incredibly happy, hyposensitive little boy. He loves boisterous play, and listening to musical toys. He is not afraid of strangers, thrives on new situations and faces, and is learning to be sneaky.

This blog is about his life, our life, the struggles we face and the joy that we have.