Werrington Downs mum Emma Ferguson has put pen to page on her first book, inspired by her daughter’s journey in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
For Ferguson, pregnancy came with its challenges.
“At 12 weeks, we found out that she had a two-vessel cord, which means that the umbilical cord was missing an artery in it, which means she was going to be quite small to begin with already. So, when we went to our 25-week scan and they said she was small, we thought, ‘Well that’s because of that, that’s normal’, and then it turned out she was less than the first percentile, and that I had preeclampsia, so that’s what was making her so tiny,” she said.
After a three-week ‘staycation’ at Nepean Hospital, baby Celeste Moran was born at 31 weeks, followed by a six-week stay in the NICU.
Though she’s not new to the writing game entirely, having written romance poetry in the past, Ferguson never thought her first book would be a children’s book.
However, she said that this stage of the journey was what immediately inspired her.
“We used to do cares every three hours where we would cuddle her, change her nappy, and we would be sitting there in a room with maybe four other parents, and I would be sitting there thinking, ‘Does she even know that I’m her mum?’, and wondering what she was thinking about, and what she could and couldn’t see,” she said.
BUY YOUR COPY OF THE BOOK HERE
What resulted was a poem written from Celeste’s perspective, which, almost a year later, would be turned into a book, called I love you little baby: A Baby’s NICU Story.
According to Ferguson, it was incredibly surreal when she received the first copy a few weeks ago, and the process has only gotten more exciting, having received a great response from other local mums so far.
Ferguson said she’s hoping to see anyone who has or is going through what can be a scary journey in the NICU pick it up.
“I’d recommend it to anyone who’s been through the NICU journey, past, present, or is about to go through the NICU journey,” she said.
“It’s incredibly comforting. It’s a book that I would have loved back then, just to have that reassurance that bub knows who you are, what’s going on, and they’re happy.”
As for what’s next for Ferguson, she said there may be a new series in the works.
“The book mentions mum and dad, so I had a few people comment asking for a single mum version, or a same-sex version, and I had one of my friends reach out to me who knows that I’ve written poetry before, and she went through IVF, so she asked for an IVF book,” she said.
“I think that will be up next, because I’ve already started the poem – I’ve sent it to her, and she’s given it the OK!”
I love you little baby: A Baby’s NICU Story is available now on Amazon, with fast delivery to the local area.
Visit https://amzn.to/3yJCPE to purchase your copy.
Cassidy Pearce
Cassidy Pearce is a news and entertainment journalist with The Western Weekender. A graduate of the University of Technology Sydney, she has previously worked with Good Morning Macarthur and joined the Weekender in 2022.