Noa Jackson

Noa max was born weighing a hefty 9lb 11 on 30th may 2009, by planned c section as like his older brother Joe, he was a breech baby.
Nothing could prepare us for the devastation that that day could bring.  I had had several growth scans throughout my pregnancy and no abnormalities were picked up on any of the scans, so when Noa was born and doctors poured into the operating theatre, the nightmare began.
Noa was whisked away to the special care unit and we were told that he was having difficulty breathing and I should have him with me in a short few hours, but I just knew things were more serious.  A doctor came into my room and dropped the bombshell that Noa had been born with a left sided CDH, and her exact words to me were “don’t hold out much hope of him living”. We were heart broken.
A team of doctors from Birmingham children’s hospital came down to us in the Worcester hospital where Noa was born, that day and carefully prepared him for his big move.  We were able to see him briefly before he went, he was such a big boy but was covered with life saving equipment and tubes everywhere, it was awful.
The following day I was taken by ambulance to be with him in Birmingham, and the day after Noas condition had stabilised enough so he could have his repair operation.  Luckily the hole in his diaphragm wasnt huge, so after putting everything  back in its place the hole was stitched up.
We were hopeful then that Noa would recover and looked forward to him coming home, however Noa then developed a severe reflux.  He couldn’t keep anything down for weeks and lost a lot of weight. There was talk of an operation for his reflux which would mean that he could never be sick! But like magic, as soon as the op was mentioned he started to take his food.  I was really pushing for Noa to be transferred back to our local hospital as it was really stressful for us all having to travel 45 minutes each day to be with Noa (there was no facility available for me to stay with Noa, parking was poor and I couldn’t drive because of my section, so we had to catch the train) also if he was closer I could spend more time with Noa and try hard to get him to take his food.  The care was fab at the BCH but there was a lot of babies to take care of and I felt that the nurses could have tried harder with his feeding.
At 5 weeks old, Noa was transferred to Worcester hospital and the following day I was able to finally bring him home!
Noa was discharged from care when he was 5 months old as he was doing fantastically!!!
We were told that there could be a number of after effects of his CDH, but we are so lucky that Noa has none!  He is now 7 years old, a keen footballer and top of his class at school!!  He is truly an inspiration to us all.  Our beautiful boy Noa xx