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Claire Bennett Update

We were told at our antenatal diagnosis that some babies do not go home between their Norwood and Glenn surgeries. They are not stable enough to go home. It seemed Florence would be in this category.

Florence is currently 18 weeks old, she has been home for around a week and has spent the rest in hospital. This takes it out of you, mentally, physically and emotionally. This stay we were readmitted on the 1st of December and we are still in hospital. After about 2 weeks into this stay I had my covid and flu vaccine and it knocked me off my feet. I decided the best place for me was to go home that night. I had a decent nights sleep and woke up feeling like a human again. The nurses and everyone had been encouraging me to go home at night but I hadn’t wanted to. We were told that this was likely to be a long hospital stint. So from then I’ve decided to go home at night. We have a routine of calling the ward to make sure Florrie is ok, and we can phone them whenever we feel we want too. It is so hard leaving her at the hospital every night. Especially now she is more interactive, we get in early and spend the day with her. But also have to balance us, living in the hospital like a second home is hard. It’s draining. Emotionally, mentally, physically we are exhausted.

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