A Difficult Beginning (part three)

Here's part 3, hopefully the final installment of the story. Sorry, it's turned out longer than I first anticipated! 

My baby girl was fighting for her life on the intensive care unit of a strange hospital, and I was struggling with being so far away from my loved ones at a time when I needed them most. This neonatal unit had a fairly different approach to the one at our own hospital. They encouraged the parents to be as actively involved as possible, showing us how to correctly tube feed her, change her nappy, wash her eyes and lips. I liked the responsibility of caring for my own daughter. 

However, the maternity ward was also very different to the one back home. They had strict rules and practices. I missed medication time once as I'd been upstairs with my daughter at the time, and when I got back down to the ward I realised just how much pain I was in (something I'd been neglecting over the last few days). One particularly harsh midwife told me that she was not unlocking her drugs trolley for one patient who can't abide by the rules. Well, 5 days post natal, I was already an emotional mess, so this was just the icing on the cake. I went back into my room and sobbed, until a more sympathetic midwife came in with some paracetamol for me. 

It turned out that the medicine my daughter was specifically transferred for wasn't needed in the end. They gradually weaned her off the ventilator. The most heartbreaking moment was when we were celebrating the fact that our daughter was breathing by herself, the parents and doctors of the very poorly little boy in the incubator next to us made the decision to withdraw care from him. I felt guilty for congratulating our baby on doing so well when just feet away, another family were grieving for their son. 

The time had come for me to be discharged. They'd already kept me in a day longer than I should have been so I could stay close to my daughter. But now they were sending me home. There were no parent rooms available on the neonatal ward, so I had to go home. The doctors assured me that my girl would be well enough to transfer back over the following day, so it would only be overnight that I was apart from her. I could handle that. Then the morning came and I got the call I'd been dreading, she'd taken a turn for the worse in the night but had begun to stabilise again. So instead of her coming back to our hospital, we made the drive back over to her. Leaving her again that evening was even harder, not knowing when she'd be fit to transfer back. 

The next day (only day six of her life, and she'd already been through so much) was the first day I couldn't be with her. Our double pushchair was due for delivery, and I needed some quality time with my son, who was only 15 months old himself. It had been a nearly a week since I'd seen him and I'd missed him so much. So I sent Mr P off by himself. I got a phone call from him just after lunch time, an update I assumed, and he told me they were back in our own hospital, just over the road from the house! I was elated, and mad that he'd not rang before now, but he didn't want to build my hopes up if the transfer wasn't going to happen again. Then I was with her in minutes! I was so relieved to have her nearby again. 

Things moved pretty quickly then. She was out of her incubator and in an open cot within a day of being back. She was very quick to establish feeding, considering she was 7 days old and had never latched on before. She just had to finish her course of antibiotics and I'd be allowed to take her home. We spent 2 nights finding our feet in one of the neonatal flats, where I was able to care for her totally by myself, with the exception of a nurse popping in 3 times a day to administer her medicine. It was bliss, just me and my girl. 

She was 11 days old when I finally got her home. All the pain and sadness that had tarnished the second half of my pregnancy just vanished. She was perfect. And she still is, just over 4 years later. 

A Difficult Beginning (part two)

Here's the second part of our journey through a problematic pregnancy and birth. At the end of my last blog, my daughter had just been born and we were back on the ward, about to start spreading the word of her safe arrival.

The clucking sound was worrying me. Like any mother with her new born baby, I just wanted to ensure she was ok. I'd had a cesarean section, so I was numb from the waist down. I was sat useless in bed while Mr P did all the to-ing and fro-ing between our little side room and the midwives' station. Then my baby girl started to turn a blue-grey colour. Something clearly wasn't right. 

A midwife came in with a portable machine to check her blood oxygen levels. To this day I do not know what that reading said, but the midwife very calmly told me that this machine was known to be inaccurate at times and that she would just nip down to neonatal with my baby to get her checked out by the paediatric team. All the nightmares of the last 16 weeks were becoming a reality. I'd not even had chance to cuddle her properly and they were taking her away from me. Mr P looked at me, lost. I tearfully told him to go with our baby. And then I lay there and sobbed. 

The midwives wouldn't let me go to her until I had recovered from the epidural. I had to rely on text updates from my husband. Snippets of information here and there. All the while I was willing my legs to come back to life. It was early evening by the time I was allowed to be wheeled up the corridor to her. My daughter was around 6 hours old, and I'd spent less than an hour with her. She was in an incubator with CPAP tubes in her nostrils, and a feeding tube down her throat. She had more tubes in her hands, and all I could do to look after her was express milk. All my other jobs as a new mummy had been taken from me. 

That first night back on the maternity ward was horrible. Although I was tucked away in my side room, I could hear all the other new borns crying and restless. All the new mummies doing their best to settle them back down. It was torture. I'd have given anything to have my baby girl crying in the cot next to me. The night passed by in a haze of crying, expressing, trying to sleep, more crying. And then the morning came. Apparently she'd had a good night. She'd remained stable with the CPAP. She continued to be tube fed tiny amounts of my milk, and I continued to pump. I'm pretty sure I could've fed the whole neonatal unit with the amount I was expressing. It was the only useful thing I was able to do, so I made sure I did it well! 

I spent the day being chaperoned backwards and forwards between the maternity and neonatal units, by either Mr P or a midwife. Then, after tea, I was finally allowed to go by myself. As I walked into the intensive care room, my daughter's incubator was surrounded by doctors, a nurse was pulling a screen around and she ushered me out to wait in the parents room. My husband arrived as I was heading back out the door. We sat together and waited for the doctor to come. 

It turned out that the moment I walked in, they had been inserting a ventilator, apparently quite distressing for the parents to witness. My little girl had taken a turn for the worse and was needing more help than before. The doctor told us that they were contemplating transferring her to another hospital, one with a better equipped neonatal unit. She'd had all the medication our hospital had to offer, and it wasn't working. I would be transferred as a patient to their maternity ward too. For the rest of the evening, there were talks between the two hospitals to decide what was best for her. The decision to transfer was made, and both my daughter and I waited for our ambulances. It was after midnight before we left.

The journey was agonising. I just wanted to know that my precious, fragile baby girl was safe. This was the first time we'd truly been apart, not just up the corridor of the hospital. The midwife travelling with me did her best to distract me. But for the whole 40 minutes, my mind just kept going over and over 'what if something happens?'. When I arrived, her tiny ambulance was no where to be seen. By the time they'd sorted all my transfer notes out, she'd arrived and was being moved from the transport incubator into her place on the intensive care ward up in neonatal. It was 3am, I'd not slept for nearly 48 hours, but I needed to see that she was ok. I made my way up three floors to her, gave her hand a little squeeze and nodded in the chair next to her incubator until the nurse looking after her persuaded me to go and get some proper sleep. 

I returned to the maternity ward to see a line of tiny new born babies in their little plastic cots queued up outside the midwives' office. I'd never understood women who gave birth and then left their babies in the care of the midwives while they got some sleep. It made me all the more upset that my daughter wasn't with me. I slept, on and off, through the pain of my healing stitches and thinking about my baby. I was far away from home, all alone, and all I wanted was a reassuring cuddle from my husband. I had to make do with a tear filled phone call first thing until he could drive over to be with us.

I think I'll leave it there for now. There are many ups and downs to come, and I don't want to tell half a story. So again, look out for part 3 in a few days time. 

A Difficult Beginning (part one)

I'd like to take the time to share the story of my second pregnancy, without a doubt the most difficult time in my whole life. 

My son was just 6 months old when we discovered I was expecting our second child. It was our first wedding anniversary and we were on holiday with my mum, dad and little sister. My parents had offered to stay at the lodge with the children (our baby, plus my two step daughters) so my husband and I could go out for a meal to celebrate. I'd been feeling off it for a couple of days and, although my period wasn't due for another day or so, I decided to take a pregnancy test before I went out and enjoyed a few glasses of wine. Good job I did! I remember it well. We drove to the local supermarket under the pretence of getting supplies for the lodge and I did the test there and then, in the toilets of the supermarket. We were overjoyed to be having another baby, even if it was a little sooner than we had planned. 

The first 12 weeks went by as you'd expect. A bit of sickness, plenty of tiredness, but nothing out of the ordinary. Then at the dating scan, the sonographer seemed to be taking ages. Then she asked me if I'd had a positive pregnancy test. Tears instantly rolled down my cheeks while she went off to fine someone more senior. Had I just imagined all my symptoms? Where was my baby? Luckily the person she brought in to double check found it. My tiny little bean, heartbeat flickering away on the screen. Relief! 

Fast forward to the 20 week scan. November 11th 2008, the day my world fell apart. The sonographer taking the baby's measurements asked if my waters had gone at all. Of course, they hadn't. I'm pretty sure I'd have noticed if they had. She disappeared to find the consultant on duty. They returned a short while later and the consultant repeated everything the sonographer had done. The baby, our daughter as we'd found out by this point, looked fine, growing well, heartbeat strong. But she had very little amniotic fluid surrounding her. 

My husband and I were a bit lost by this point. What did it all mean? We were asked to wait until the consultant had finished her clinic and she would sit with us and go through everything with us. I made a quick phone call to the nursery where my son was and we sat and waited. And waited. It seemed to take forever. In fact it was only about half an hour, but it was the longest half hour ever! 

When the consultant called us in, she explained that we had a condition called oligohydramnios. Not enough fluid surrounding the baby. Apparently this can be caused by a number of things. One cause is a problem with the baby's kidneys, which all looked fine on the scan, so the consultant was confident this was not our problem. She mentioned a couple of other things, but what she suspected the most was that my waters had ruptured (I was sure they hadn't). 

The prognosis wasn't great. Figures like 80-90% fetal mortality in cases diagnosed early were being thrown at us. As there was no way to determine when my waters had gone, or indeed if there were any there to begin with, there was no way of knowing how developed my baby's lungs would be. The amniotic fluid is vital for the development of the lungs up to 22 weeks gestation. We were told that while she was still in utero, all would be fine. She would appear strong and healthy. The problems would arise after her birth. If her lungs were not fully developed, she'd have a slim chance of survival once she had to breathe for herself. We were told that 'many couples would choose to terminate at this stage'. I didn't understand. My baby had a chance of being born fine, not the best chance, but a chance all the same. Why would I even consider that option! There was no questioning it, my pregnancy would continue. 

We left the hospital at 6.30pm, from our 3.00pm appointment. We were emotionally drained. And we faced a very long 20 weeks ahead of us. 20 weeks of being scanned and poked and prodded by various different specialists. At 28 weeks I had a leak. I lost fluid, what little I had of it. From this point on I had to have twice weekly blood tests to check for infections plus a weekly speculum examination. My arms were battered and bruised. It became second nature to have a midwife looking up my lady bits! All this, as well as my fortnightly scan. It's a good job we lived opposite the hospital! 

Then at nearly 37 weeks we had our latest scan with our consultant and she decided that the baby was ready to be born. She was breech, and with all the other complications, they wouldn't try and turn her. Nor would they let me attempt a natural delivery. My worst fear. A cesarean section. She booked us in for the following day. That night was tough. For the last 16 weeks, I had been dreading the day my daughter had to be born. While she was inside me, I was taking care of her, she had all she needed. Giving birth could mean losing her. But I couldn't keep her inside me forever. 

The cesarean went well. My baby girl was born at 36+6 weeks, only one day before she would be classed as full term. The paediatric doctors were on standby, although it seemed they wouldn't be needed. In the recovery room, Mr P sat by me, holding our baby girl. All seemed well, apart from the little clucking noise she was making, apparently common in cesarean born babies. Within half an hour we were back on the maternity ward, baby girl included. But it wasn't over yet... 

Keep your eyes peeled for part two...