TV presenter: 'I felt like I'd failed my premature baby'

My waters broke on national TV.

It’s a great story, and one that I have told many times in the six years since my daughter arrived six week early, when I was reading the news on Weekend TODAY.

It’s a humorous and funny tale. Like turning up to the birthing suite with a full face of make-up and false eyelashes. On a Sunday morning.  Or the dash my husband made to the hospital from a boys weekend away… interstate.

What I don’t talk about is the grief and guilt I feel about having my baby early.  You see, carrying your child is the first job you are given as a mum. And I felt like I failed. Miserably.

The humidcrib, the feeding tube, the flashing lights and beeps of a neonatal unit, the string of visitors who went home without seeing my baby, and the day I went home with my baby bassinet empty, leaving my daughter behind.

These are all things that I have come to terms with.

But not the guilt. The guilt is still with me every, single day.

Why me? Was it something I did? Did I work too hard? Do too much exercise? Have too much stress? Not put on enough weight? The doctors couldn’t tell me why, it was just called a ‘spontaneous labour’. I felt like I failed her.

The area nurse made a mistake and put me in a mother’s group with full-term babies. I dropped out after two weeks. While they were talking cracked nipples and controlled crying, I was taking my daughter to specialist appointments, wondering if her irregular heartbeat was ok, whether her lungs we developed enough and if her eyesight or hearing were affected.

After 5 weeks in hospital she came home.  I was terrified. There were no re-assuring beeps to tell me she was still breathing, or the up and down of the heart monitor line to tell me her heart was still pumping.

It took a year to come up for air.

I joined a special mother’s group for premature babies and spent time with the amazing charity Miracle Babies, and realised guilt was a common theme.

But premature birth can happen to anyone. In fact, many women who have a premmie baby, have no known risk factors.

These days, my daughter is a tall, robust and energetic child.  No-one would ever guess the traumatic start she had to life. But I will never forget.

The other day she asked, “mummy, can you check on me after I go to sleep?”.

I replied, “Darling… I have checked on you every single night since you were born. And I will do it every night until you are a grown up.”

 To check she is breathing, that she is okay. She won’t remember. But I will.