Alana Wilkinson’s little boy was born very premature, weighing just 704 grams. She and husband Angus feared he wouldn’t make it… and so they hatched a VERY special plan

A mum and dad got married by their premature baby’s side as he fought for his life in the hospital’s intensive care unit after being born at just 24 weeks. 

Alana Wilkinson, 33, and her husband Angus, 34, planned an intimate ceremony by their son Rafferty’s bedside in Brisbane’s Mater Hospital because they weren’t sure their firstborn would survive.

It was November 14, 2021. Rafferty had been born fewer than three weeks earlier, weighing just 704 grams. 

The hospital was under strict visitor number guidelines because of Covid-19 – and Ms Wilkinson was determined to get married by their newborn’s side. 

‘I said to Angus, ‘Let’s just get married in the hospital, I know it’s Covid and no one can come but I want to get married with our baby because we don’t know if he’s going to be with us, we just don’t know what’s coming’,’ Alana told FEMAIL. 

Thankfully, after more than three months in the Neonatal Critical Care Unit, Rafferty pulled through and was able to return home to Alana and Angus’s home in the NSW northern rivers region.

Desperate measures for a hospital wedding 

On November 14, in the midst of the Covid pandemic, a rare ceremony took place in Mater Hospital’s Neonatal Critical Care Unit. 

Staff at the hospital were prepared to do whatever they could to allow Angus and Alana to marry next to the then-three-week-old Rafferty.

Just days earlier, Alana had started planning her unorthodox wedding ceremony having found a celebrant to participate.  

One of Rafferty’s nurses, Amanda, was a photographer who scheduled herself to work so she could care for the tiny baby and take photos as the parents wed. 

‘Amanda put him in a little outfit so he was the best boy and Mater put on his medical record that on the 14th of November, he was the best boy at Mum and Dad’s wedding,’ Alana said. 

‘We couldn’t have a big family or crowd but that suits us perfectly outside of all of the NCCU chaos.’

Rafferty had been in critical care since he was born on October 25 and had taken a turn leaving medical staff as well as his parents unsure if he would make it.  

‘Raff was doing really well for the first ten days, things were pretty good, and I was like, ‘Our kid’s going to kick butt in here’,’ Alana recalled. 

‘Then a wobble started, he was having troubles and his lungs needed more help, that’s when I felt it was really important to surround him with as much love as possible.’

Weeks earlier the parents had moved up to the Northern Rivers from Melbourne to start their new life ahead of their son’s birth and were staying with friends while looking for a home.

They thought they had plenty of time to find their feet before Rafferty’s arrival until one day when Alana, then just six months pregnant, started to feel a strange pain. 

‘I was having them overnight then during the day they’d stopped. I didn’t realise they were contractions, I’d never been in labour before,’ she said. 

After almost 24 hours, the pain was getting worse so Angus insisted they go to the hospital and they drove 50 minutes through the pouring rain to Lismore. 

By the time they arrived, Alana’s contractions were just three minutes apart but she didn’t realise she was in early labour until a doctor sat her down. 

‘She said, ‘You’re going to be transferred up to Brisbane and stay in hospital with your baby, regardless of when they’re born, until their due date’,’ Alana recalled.

‘It was really overwhelming and quite jarring.’

Staff managed to delay labour for a few days while the mum was transferred to Mater Hospital.

Rafferty was determined to come into the world and was born naturally weighing a tiny 704 grams.

‘I got to see him a few hours later. He was tiny. It was really kind of amazing to see a person so small. He was a little bit bigger than a tub of butter,’ Alana said. 

He was taken straight to the NCCU where he was placed on a ventilator and closely monitored.  

Alana recovered well from the birth and was released from hospital quickly but she and Angus would come back every day to be by Rafferty’s side. 

‘He had some oxygen issues, lots of bradycardias, heart rate drops, and a couple of blood transfusions. At that age it’s pretty touch and go,’ Alana said. 

The focus of his care was getting him breathing on his own and making sure he was growing and developing at a good rate. 

But there were moments when the parents were unsure if their baby would pull through. 

‘A couple of times we came in the morning and the nurse would say ‘Raff’s had a really rough night’,’ Alana said. 

‘We would look at him and he was pale and white and looked like a little doll. It was really confronting to see a baby look like they could possibly not make it.’

The struggling mum said she coped by refusing to bottle up her emotions. 

‘One of the biggest challenges was leaving him at night because of the mumma-baby magic, there’s is a primal ache in the body that’s like, ‘Hey you’re baby’s not here’,’ she said. 

‘I made sure that when I needed to cry I just howled. I didn’t put anything on hold, I was really aware that I was going through a really challenging time and the last thing I wanted to do was make it harder for myself by not feeling it.’

One unique way she would process her pain and connect with Rafferty was through song using her musical talents.

‘A girlfriend of mine dropped a little ukulele off at the hospital. I would pull Raff out of his humidity crib and pop him on my chest, have the ukulele pressed up against his little butt and sing songs,’ she said.

She wrote songs about oxygen travelling around his body and even his haemoglobin levels. Alana said she still plays the haemoglobin song at her shows. 

Alana said the music had a profound effect on Rafferty’s health.

‘It was amazing to walk in in the morning after he’d a really tough night and lots of bradycardias, and difficulties with his oxygen,’ she said, 

‘Then when I’d put him on my chest and sing songs with him, you’d just see how it would stabilise him. The nurses would say ‘Woah, look!’ and we’d all just watch it together.’

After 92 days, two weeks before his initial due date, Rafferty was stable enough to go home with his parents to the Brisbane house they had rented so they could be close to Mater Hospital. 

‘I cried the whole time; ugly crying happy face. It was awesome,’ the mum said of finally having her baby home. 

However, he needed to stay on an oxygen tank for 12 months after leaving the NCCU as his lungs weren’t quite ready to fare on their own. 

‘Navigating those first few months was really challenging because you can’t go longer than five or 10 minutes without oxygen,’ Alana said. 

‘There were a couple of times where he would have pulled out his oxygen tube, it got really scary.’

The parents were relieved when Rafferty was able to go without the oxygen tank in January 2023 and he could start his life without any health constraints. 

‘I did the ugly, happy cry again. It felt like the end of an era. Once he got rid of the tanks he was there was a real freeness in him that opened up,’ Alana said. 

She describes Rafferty as a ‘firecracker’ who’s filled with energy.

‘That’s the thing with premmie babies, they’re go-getters. Their start to life, their little human blueprint has been imprinted with a zest and a fight to survive,’ she said. 

Alana has released the first song she wrote for Rafferty in the NCCU, Dream Big, which is available on Spotify. 

‘It is a little love song for him to lock in on all the beautiful things that we get to do now,’ she said. 

‘It was to really connect with him in those moments in the chair sitting by the window and let him know there was a whole world out there just waiting for him.’