After 165 days in hospital, five month old baby John Metaxiotis is finally waking up in his own cot, in his own home, surrounded with the warmth of his loving parents.
Baby John is nothing short of a miracle. Born at 26 weeks, little John weighed under 400g, and was no longer than a ballpoint pen. But now, weighing 3400g, he is a healthy baby boy. Even though his life so far has been a battle every day, his fight for survival and will to live are a testament to his parents.
“You pray every night for a healthy son, and at the end of the day, you ask you shall receive,” says his mother Paula, who tells Neos Kosmos having her son at home finally is “surreal”.
“I can’t believe he’s actually home!”
Since they were married 15 years ago, all Paula and husband Con wanted was a child. Their focus was starting a family and with 15 IVF attempts and three miscarriages, things weren’t looking good.
On their 16th attempt at IVF, Paula admits that she was thinking for a moment maybe it wasn’t going to happen for them, but she and her husband’s determination showed no bounds and they got pregnant.
“We were happy but still cautious,” says Paula when she found out they were pregnant.
On their seven week scan things were looking good, on the 12 week scan they were quietly confident that they were finally getting the baby they desperately prayed and hoped for.
Then on the 20 week scan, things slowly started to unravel. They discovered Paula had high blood pressure and could be a candidate for pre-eclampsia so they had to extra precautions, and they also noticed that the baby’s development, his growth was a little behind schedule to someone his age. On the 23rd week scan, their biggest nightmare was confirmed. The doctors discovered that the placenta was blocked and the baby wasn’t getting the nutrients needed to grow and survive. But in her heart of hearts, Paula knew he would survive, she felt her baby, she knew this was happening, he would be born and he would live.
On the 14 December last year, the doctors knew that the could wait no longer, baby John’s chances of survival were better on the outside.
“When they told me on the Friday I was devastated because [the doctors] said ‘we can only hope for a good outcome but we just don’t know'”, Paula explains.
“I thought to myself we’ve come so far, it can’t be taken away from us, that’s just cruel.”
At 12:09 pm on the 14 December, 2013 baby John was born. The tiny little miracle couldn’t be in the arms of his parents and it was a long-hill battle that both Paula and Con took in their stride and at one day at a time.
“All your energy becomes focused on your son,” she says on those endless days and nights in the hospital, talking to her son, showeing him with love because as Paula says “it’s love that makes them grow”.
“We saw it as our job,” says new dad Con, “and we had to stay positive and not get too emotional.
“You have to believe that God is with us to help, and that we are doing the best thing for him to progress.”
And that they are. Their little fighter is home and, even though he’s on oxygen to help with the development of his lungs, his heart is healthy and beating well, and his brain is healthy and every day he gets that little bit bigger showered with the love from his family.
“His eyes, and his chin,” says mother Paula with a smile in her voice about her favourite quality of her first son who has his pappou’s namesake. “He has this pointy little chin and these big blue eyes, from his pappou.”
Such big blue eyes, for a tiny little miracle.