Read Time: 3.5 mins
My son came crashing into the world in June of 2026. The first few hours of his life were touch and go. He had a fever, he was unresponsive, and he couldn’t breathe without the help of a machine.
I rubbed my eyes trying to dim the blinding lights of the small examination room. Everything had happened so quickly, and yet so slowly. I left my beloved wife, sobbing, on the hospital bed and followed my floppy blue son as he was whisked out into the corridor and, a few doors down, placed delicately into an incubator.
I stood in the corner of the overcrowded room, trying not to cry. I had been awake for 24 hours so this was a challenge. A challenge, however, that my emotionally repressed self was well equipped for. The prickling in my eyes was that of panic.
I should feel something, I thought to myself, why don’t I feel anything?
My thoughts weren’t in the most agreeable of moods. They started to spiral. You should feel sad or scared or angry or, well, something. Do you not love your newborn child? You feel exactly the same as a few moments ago when you didn’t have a child. Also, have you just made this moment about YOU?! Your son will be in therapy for your narcissistic tendencies sooner rather than later.
“What’s his name?” Pulling my hands away from my face, I looked up into the eyes of one of the emergency paediatricians. She was standing directly opposite me, massaging my son’s left hand with a huge smile on her face.
“Oh, umm,” I stuttered, “it’s — it’s, Oliver.”
“Well,” she said looking down at the limp greying baby as if he was the most beautiful creature in the world, “Oliver, let’s get you feeling better!”
Looking back on it now, I must have been the first person in the world to utter Oliver’s name out loud. What a privilege that is. In the moment though, all I could think about was how much I would like to not be a problem. I just wanted to let the people who were best placed to save my son, save my son.
They did. Soon enough we got the all clear that there was nothing more they could do for now other than to put him on a dose of antibiotics and monitor him for a few days.
I was led to the NICU via Christine’s room. I am not sure she had stopped crying since we left her and seeing her broke my emotionally repressed magical tear suppression skills. I snivelled a hello . Leaning over the arm of her bed, peering down at Oliver, covered in tubes and lying there alone in his little incubator, she sobbed. My heart broke.
In the lift on the way up, surrounded by four of the nicest nurses in the world, I was feeling a mix of worry, fatigue, and elation. I am guessing the worry was the most apparent for the nurses kept smiling at me.
“He looks like he is a beautiful little boy.” One said cheerily, I gave a faint smile back wondering simultaneously what my son’s face looked like under his breathing tubes and mask. She continued to examine him. “Gosh, but my, oh my, does he have big toes.”
There was a second of silence, broken by a laugh that burst from me like a freight train. I couldn’t help myself. As we exited the lift and I regained my composure slightly, I grinned at her. “Well, he gets those from his birth mother, she’ll be delighted.”
And, as we walked off chuckling, a weight lifted from my shoulders. We weren’t out of the woods yet but for the first time since Oliver was born, I trusted we’d find our way.
