Love through plastic

“Never before had there been such a sterile sibling bonding experience. It was love through plastic.”

Excerpt from Twenty-four Plus Six, my upcoming memoir

Our eldest daughter was only 3-years-old when her sister arrived in the world 15 weeks early. It had the same effect as a meteor, crashing into the middle of her world and obliterating everything she knew to be normal. Overnight, she traded her carefree Frozen games for the tubes, probes, ventilators and incubators of neonatal intensive care. It was months before she could cuddle her baby sister, kiss her head and hold her hand. Instead, she had to be content with peering through the plastic doors of the incubator, trying to see her sister through the Spaghetti Junction of tubes and wires.

“Mum, this isn’t like that Hello, New Baby book you read me before we came on holiday. When will I get to hold [my sister] like the girl in that book? Will [my sister] come home soon like the baby in the story?”

Excerpt from Twenty-four Plus Six, my upcoming memoir

My husband and I tried to shield her from the daily barrage of distressing news and difficult emotions we experienced on the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit), taking care not to discuss medical issues in front of her. We put happy faces on whenever we were around her, laughing and joking with her as normally as possible. But she picked up on far more than we appreciated. One afternoon she announced she was busy keeping all mummy and daddy’s sadness in her heart so that it couldn’t escape and hurt either of us.

It was such a profound statement for such a little girl to make. She must have sensed the deep sadness and fear we carried with us underneath the carefully crafted façade, and somehow felt the need to bear some of that burden for us. It was a hefty weight for a three-year-old and I began to worry acutely about the psychological effect the ongoing trauma was having on her.

Our little baby remained in hospital battling for her life for a long and incredibly tough 5 months. Every day during this time our 3-year-old was desperately angry, frightened, sad, confused, worried. She grieved the loss of a ‘normal’ baby sister and resented the fact she couldn’t fulfil the ‘normal’ big sister role. Despite our best efforts to explain what was happening, she came to despise the doctors and nurses, believing that they weren’t letting her sister come home, and worse, that they were intentionally hurting her.

What it means for a sibling to have a baby brother or sister born early or sick is not a topic that’s explored very often. There’s not much research available about the impact it can have on siblings. Yet 1 in 7 babies is admitted to neonatal care in the UK. That equates to thousands of older siblings a year going through a potentially traumatic, emotionally complex experience. Not all babies admitted to neonatal care will need to spend 5 months there, but a NICU stay of even a few days will still have an impact on the wider family. More research needs to be done to find out how siblings can be affected and how parents, teachers and children’s services can best support them.

I discuss in detail the impact that the early birth of her sister had on my eldest daughter in my upcoming memoir, Twenty-four Plus Six, and make a case for greater sensitivity, compassion and family integrated care in the neonatal setting. My daughter has also written a children’s book called My Very Little Sister and the Very Big Story to help families of premature and sick babies. It provides both a heart-breaking and heart-warming window into the sibling perspective, detailing how she came to terms with the effects of having a little sister on a neonatal unit.

Has one or more of your children experienced a sibling being born prematurely? How were they affected physically, mentally and emotionally? Let me know in the comments.