TELL US YOUR EXPERIENCE!

We came to Italy for one week holiday in July, 2017 and Susanna, my wife, was pregnant in week 30 and we went to Lago di Garda but after a couple of days, she had pain and we didn’t realize at the time that it was actually contractions.

After two or three days, we actually went to the nearest hospital to check and this hospital was in Bussolengo (outside of Verona) and they just kept her for the night. There, they said that they would just keep her under observation. Therefore, in the middle of the second night, the birth started.

So, I got the message that now I need to come to the hospital. I took a taxi, and I came there maybe three o’clock in the morning. Victor was born around seven o’clock, and he was then 10 weeks premature,

A doctor called Alberto Dell’Angelo worked there and looked after Viktor when he was in the incubator, by doing an ultrasound on the brain to make sure our son didn’t have any bleeding in the brain but actually, Viktor had an hemorrhage.

WHY DID YOU COME AT GASLINI?

After 10 days we were transferred to Gaslini because Dr. Dell’Angelo and Dr. Ramenghi they knew each other, so that’s how we came to Gaslini. Susanna and Viktor went in the ambulance, and I had to go by my own car. In fact, I came a few hours later.

When we came at Gaslini, Victor was going in for surgery the next day. Because of operation, Victor had a drainage from the brain for six weeks.

So, half of August and all of September, we were here, and just waited and waited for this to be ready and Susanna and I wondered if that drainage had worked well.

Sometime at the end of September, we got very good news from Dr. Ramenghi: Viktor looked well and they removed the draining. Afterwards, we stayed for more or less another half weeks and we could go home on the 1st of October 2017 just when Viktor was supposed to be born. Quite strange, isn’t it? We were supposed to come to Italy for one week and we stayed for 10 weeks!

Now, Viktor is a nice boy and a good eldest brother. In fact, he has two younger sisters, Felicia and Theresa.

IF A FAMILY LIVED YOUR SAME EXPERIENCE, WHAT WOULD YOU TELL?

It’s a very difficult question. But we would be glad of sharing our experience with families’. Staying in TIN is very stressing, you often can’t pick your child out of the incubator. You could sit close to and look at him/her only, as we did. Viktor had a drainage blood, we could not pick him out of the incubator, but only sitting next to him and look at him. We visited him in the morning and in the evening.

So, we would very much recommend that the parents look after themselves, because they could “forget” easily their wellbeing in these situations. In fact, they should be going to see places and to eat in nice restaurants and not just focus on being here all the time, by dedicating some time to visit their son or daughter as we did.

We talked about intraventricular hemorrhage in an article (you can read it here) and in a podcast (listen it!). You can view here the full list of personal stories, too.