"Transport from Coombe to The Royal Belfast"

We were attending an antenatal apt in the Coombe for our baby's cardiac defect. We were travelling home from Dublin next morning and my waters broke 5wks early on the motorway so turned around and made our way back to the Coombe in Dublin. Our baby boy was delivered in Coombe and then transported to Crumlin to have open heart surgery at 1 week old.

The TGA and VSD closure was successful however, it was challenging taking him off bypass so ended up on the ECMO machine for 4 days and closed his chest up a week later, he spent 3wks in ICU with respiratory problems as his left side of diaphragm is paralysed due to nerve damage from surgery. He then spent a week and a half on the children's heart ward in Crumlin and then got transferred to the Royal in the children's heartbest ambulance NISTAR by Cara & Julie and they were amazing. Great support and excellent team work everything went smoothly with their communication and we our here now until our boy is ready for home.