The parents of a premature baby have spoken of the “profound emotion” of uniting him with his grandmother for the first time after a months-long delay in getting the child an Irish passport almost ruined the get-together.
John Ruddy (40), from Dublin, choked back tears as he recalled the moment that he finally handed over his 15-month-old Cillian to grandmother Moira in a long-planned visit to France that nearly fell through.
“I have tears in my eyes right now – it was really amazing. We had been looking forward to it for so long, handing my son over to her, it was incredible,” he told The Irish Times.
“I hadn’t seen my mum for a number of years because of health complications and the pandemic, so this was really so important.
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“I am her first baby, and for me to hand her my first baby, it was just profoundly emotional, such a joyous moment.”
Cillian suffers from chronic lung disease as a result of being born 14 weeks early. Immediately after his birth it was uncertain whether he would survive
Ruddy and partner Lynn Yin (40) had applied for Cillian’s passport on May 16th, a week after Cillian was cleared by doctors to fly following complications from a premature birth after IVF treatment.
Cillian suffers from chronic lung disease as a result of being born 14 weeks early. Immediately after his birth it was uncertain whether he would survive.
Two days before they were due to fly out from their home in Manchester on August 17th to visit Moira, who lives near La Rochelle, Cillian’s passport had still not been issued, and they faced losing thousands of euro on the planned trip.
No reason given
Yin accused the Passport Office of vetting Cillian like an “international criminal” even though he is “not able to even walk and talk yet” and said they were given no reason for the hold-up, despite having been told the passport would be issued on July 7th.
It was only after a story about their plight was published in The Irish Times, with much media follow-up, that the Passport Office contacted the family to say Cillian’s passport could be collected.
John’s father had to rush from Newry to pick it up in central Dublin before returning home and dispatching it to them by courier. It arrived 24 hours before they were due to board the flight.
“It was a real race against time in the end,” said John.
“We are just lucky we had people in Ireland to run around and do this for us. You can’t help but feel for all those people that aren’t that lucky. We took extreme steps to put pressure on them, to get it to work out.
“I had been speaking to the Passport Office that morning, begging for some update, but I was told they can’t guarantee anything, can’t tell me anything other than it is still in a queue.
“That was just a couple of hours before getting a phone call to say it was all sorted.
“Even that day I was almost hopeless, like time had run out.”
Intensive care
Throughout Cillian’s ordeal after his birth, during which he was kept in intensive care for months, the family kept in touch with John’s mother, Moira, who is from Newry, by phone and video-calls.
When they finally met in person, “it was just amazing,” said Yin.
“I find it very difficult to put it into words, just the expression on John’s mum’s face. Her only description of Cillian is an ‘absolute little angel.’ She was immediately in tears, John was in tears. It was such a deep, meaningful moment.
“Just watching that level of emotion from John and his mum, you could actually feel it in the air. We are so grateful it happened. I think it was a miracle too that we made it.”
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Yin says both her and John’s work commitments meant another trip would have been unlikely in the near future.
“If new passports genuinely take six months, then the Passport Office should just update their guidance to say that,” she said.
“There is no point in saying something when it is not the reality any more. Guidance is there to help people like us.”