How a ‘hard road’ travelled has led to supporting neonatal nurseries

“We owe Chelsea’s life to the Hospital,” Matt Jones said.

Shannon and Matt Jones hadn’t planned for their first daughter to be born at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Eleven years on and the family is still eternally grateful for the care and support they received from the dedicated staff.

After a seemingly stress-free start to pregnancy, at 27 weeks – in the middle of the night – Shannon started to experience back pain. Matt drove her to their local hospital in the Barossa where the doctor told the young couple Shannon was in labour and she needed to go to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital by ambulance immediately.

“Without doubt, it was the most nerve-wracking drive of my life,” Matt, who travelled to the Hospital in his own car, said.

Doctors found Chelsea had her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck and Shannon went straight in for an emergency c-section.

“There were 10-plus doctors in the room when Chelsea was born, it was incredible. I still get emotional thinking about it,” Matt said.

Born weighing just 760 grams, Chelsea spent the first month of her life in Neonatal Intensive Care (NICU) and the next two in Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU).

Shannon with baby Chelsea in NICU, Chelsea and her sister Adele, and more recently Chelsea who is now 11-years-old.

Two and a half years later, the couple’s second daughter, Adele, was born at 36 weeks at the Lyell McEwin Hospital and the family once again needed SCBU. Fortunately, this time, they were only in for a few weeks.

Matt said Chelsea is now 11-years-old and is perfectly healthy, and his family owes it all to the nurses and doctors at the WCH.

“The more people you speak to about pregnancy and birth you learn it is very rare things go smoothly; we are just some of the lucky ones because Chelsea is 100% healthy,” Matt said.

“From our experience we wanted to make an ongoing contribution to the Hospital to show our appreciation. One of our family friends, Marco Cirillo, is a well-known winemaker from the Barossa, and from speaking with him the seed was planted that we could create Jones Family Wines.

“Our basket-pressed shiraz, the ‘Dura Via’, is the only variety created by Jones Family Wines and part proceeds from every bottle sold will be donated to the Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation.

“Dura Via is Latin for ‘hard road’ and the name highlights the rocky start to Chelsea’s life and how we travelled it together as a family. The map on the wine label traces the exact route I took to the Hospital on the day Chelsea was born.”

Proceeds will benefit projects in NICU and SCBU.