The diary of Dad

Take me home

The weather has never been a friend of mine. Each major event in my life has been met with with catastrophic natural conditions as though the God of weather is playing a lifelong practical joke on me.

Thunder clashed as I said my Wedding vowels, our honeymoon was spent locked in a hotel room to protect us from a hurricane and our first ‘Summer’ holiday as a family was spent trapped in a house in Sunny Spain to avoid the flooding.

It came as no surprise that rain clattered down as I loaded up the car with all of our hospital bags and prepared to finally get our little man to his new home.

Sarah was fixed. Robbie was healthy. Dad was sleepy. The two days since his birth had been frustrating, culminating in the ultimate frustration of a photographer wanting to picture of disheveled and pain ridden faces from every angle whilst we suffered.

When I returned to our little private room in the hospital (we had been upgraded due to our long stay, a bit like a customer reward scheme,) three sad faces looked back at me. I knew bad news was coming as both Nans and Mum stared back. “We’ve found a worrying mark on his shoulder, we can’t go home until it’s checked.” Looked like our hospital holiday was not over yet.

Another hour passed as we all worked ourselves in to a frenzy as to what this mark could mean. Is our beautiful baby ok? Could it be a major problem? Is he ill? Was it our fault? The birth had not been ideal and as we all furiously searched google looking at the worst possible scenarios the doctor returned.

“He’s going to need an x-ray.” The world around me began to collapse again. The excitement of finally getting Robbie home had now turned sharply to fear of wellbeing and sadness that we would not be getting out of this hospital ever again.

At this point it is only fair to say that the staff here were amazing. Having expected at least another night before the X-ray could take place Robbie was taken in within half an hour. I’m still unsure whether it was the hospital’s sympathy for our situation or the undoubtedly horrendous stench that must have been coming from our room having spent far longer at the resort than we had planned for.

The x-ray was a moment in my life that I will never forget, despite the fact that I was not there to see it. Only one parent was allowed in the room and I was left to sit out in the corridor. I was in tears had something in my eye, as I sat there listening to Robbie screaming and powerless to help or comfort him.

Back into the torrential rain that has always followed me, but this time triumphantly holding my Son in my arms. We were free and the time had come to get home and start our lives together as a family. I was Dad.

Fortunately for us all the results came back fast. Robbie had suffered a broken Clavical (Collarbone) on his dramatic entrance to the world but nothing more serious. He would heal up in no time time with a couple of light therapy sessions and we were free to leave. We almost sprinted out of that hospital. 6 days of pain, exhaustion, setbacks, overwhelming joy and disgusting bodily fluids were over.

Thanks for reading! More posts are on their way, but if you would like to catch up on the ‘diary of Dad’ story, check out the links below. Oh… And don’t forget to like and share my story. Dad.