"It's a healthy little boy," the midwife exclaimed, holding up a blue and red faced wrinkled little baby, screaming his lungs out for the first time in this world.
I held my baby in my arms and smiled down at him. I have a son. I'd always dreamed I'd have a son first and never doubted for one moment he was healthy. How significant those words were to mean to me very soon and how I longed for someone to tell me this in the months to come.
I never realised as I gazed lovingly into my baby's lovely blue eyes.
Micheal Steven was born on the 5th March 1976. It was a normal delivery and just like any new mum, I was so proud of him. He was taken into the nursery to be washed and fed so that the nurses could get on with the task of washing me and getting me ready to be taken into the ward.
"Well done" the mums exclaimed as I was wheeled back to my bed and my heart sung as I smiled back to them forcing back the nausea I felt from the drugs.
When the nurses settled me back into my bed I fell into a lovely sleep. My husband, Mick, woke me at visiting time and we talked of life together now that Micheal was here and of the future together as a family.
The next day as normal, Micheal was brought round to my bed for feeding and me and the mums chatted together as we fed our new babies. The next day, I was allowed into the nursery to bath and feed him there.
A day later they told me they were taking Micheal out of the nursery and putting him in the special care unit as he wasn't feeding properly. I went down to the unit and found Micheal on a tube feed. I asked the Sister Thomas why Micheal was on a tube and she said that he wasn't sucking properly so he would have to be tube fed until he could suck normally.
I asked Sister Thomas if I could breastfeed Micheal myself as I was expressing milk into a bottle for him and now I wanted to try breastfeeding him properly.
She told me that he couldn't suck and when I insisted she shoved his face onto my breast, squishing his face up which startled him that he just laid there with his mouth open.
"See," she shouted, "he's got no idea."
I was so angry that I called her spiteful and said he never really had the chance because no one showed him or me what to do. I spent every day in the unit with him, just sitting there talking to him and trying to feed him from a bottle.
On my seventh day they put in a two bed room with another girl and told me I could have Micheal with me all the time and also feed him from a bottle and they took the tube out. He seemed to be coming on nicely and on my tenth day, I took him.
