Good morning ladies,
I have just caught up on 13 days worth of posts from you all, and can honestly say I feel very much supported with the amount of comments from you all about how I am doing. Thank you and expect that this post is going to be a long one as baby Maia was born by c section on Friday 12 July 2013 at 3.19am. It has taken me this long to get enough time to jump on here and tell you guys my story.
I had been in hospital with severe pre-eclampsia since 27 June 2013 and had been monitored since that time for signs and symptoms. The only symptom I had was that my blood pressure was high and kept increasing. I had been hoping that I could go home and just be monitored from there, as I had no other symptoms (such as blurred vision, headaches, starts and bright lights in front of the eyes), I had none of that, in fact on 27 June I took the day off from work and went to the doctors to get a certificate for the day off, plus get my results for the glucose challenge test. My doc did the usual blood pressure check and my bp was 160/100. He called the hospital who told me to come in. I drove myself from the doctor's surgery to the hospital, a 10 minute trip, but in hindsight I really shouldn't have, it is very risky doing that. Once at the hospital they got me to do a urine sample, which showed that not only was my bp high but I had high amounts of protein in my urine (9.6 when protein should never be in your urine) another sign of pre-eclampsia, and of course the fluid retention was astranomical (my ankles and legs looked like tree trunks). The fluid retention had been like that since about 20 weeks and I remember calling the hospital around 24 weeks to speak to them about it, they never got me to come in to do any tests, as they said it was way too early for pre-eclampsia to show its ugly head, but I would hazard a guess that I was already sick at that stage I just didn't know it.
Long story short, the docs at this hospital said they were 99.9% sure that I had pre-eclampsia but that if that was the case I had to be transferred to the Women's and Children's Hospital in the city, where they would likely deliver Maia immediately. I had to be transferred by ambulance with my partner driving behind us because my hospital was not equipped to deal with a prem baby at 28 weeks. The doc also told me that having PE at such an early gestation is very unusual and that because I didn't have any symptoms either, other than the fluid retention, it was a miracle they even became aware of it.
I ended up spending another two weeks in hospital at the antenatal ward before Maia started being affected by the pre-eclampsia and had to be delivered. I basically had an ultrasound on Thursday 11 July which the doctors were looking to see if the restriction between the placenta to the baby was still compromised, it had been shown to be compromised two days earlier and they were talking delivery soon at that stage. I was having blood tests and ultrasounds every two days. My blood test on Thursday 11 July showed that the creatinine levels had gone from 82, which is high, to 98, which is extremely high and baby in trouble, in two days. Not only that, several days before this Maia was not moving, even when I drank the trusty orange or apple juice and cold icy water. My obs were performed every four hours and days before she had slowed down her movements so much I was paniking. I was put on CTG traces every day and in the first week and a half that I was there, Maia's traces were star quality, midwives were jealous of how well her traces were going, then of course she started to throw a few bad ones and not moving too much, the nurses and doctors were looking for variability and if the baby was not giving them that variability then you had to be on the machine for a lot longer. Emotionally I was a wreck. My partner came to visit every day before he went to work and spent a lot more time with me in hospital during the weekends.
I got to go home only once on a Sunday while I was still pregnant, my cats were not coping, I had left home on 27 June and never came home as far as they knew.
Anyway, this is becoming a very long post, sorry, it has been such a huge ride.
I was taken upstairs one floor to the birthing suites where they immediately put me on a CTG trace. My last post to you guys was saying about being on the machine for over 3 hours. Well after that the doctors were vacillating between putting up a catheter with two balloons either side of my cervix to dilate me that way. They tried that method, did not work, my cervix was so tight and fully closed that they could even insert the balloon. So the doc spoke to another doctor and they ended up inserting the gels to dilate my cervix at 10.30pm that night. One of the risks with the gels was that I would develop contractions as a result and because we were talking about prem birth that was a risk for Maia that she may not cope with the contractions. Basically I did get contractions, which I could cope with myself, they were coming every minute and lasted 30 seconds, but the problem was Maia dropped her heart rate at every contraction to below 100 bpm, which was basically saying she wasn't coping with this. The doctors walked into my room, my other half trying to sleep on the floor, and told me Maia won't survive 24 hours unless they deliver her by c section now. The doctor then told me all the risks associated with ceasearean, including the risks of uncontrollable bleeding and that if that happens that they may have to take out my uterus to save my life, but that they won't know that until they are in there.
I was wheeled into surgery at 2.40am and Maia was born at 3.19am Friday 12 July 2013. The surgery was highly eventful as well, as they performed an epidural on me and part of that epidural was morphine put in for 24 hour pain relief after the surgery. I immediately vomitted everywhere, my partner holding the bowl as I could not stop, although the anaesthetic doctor went through her repertoire of drugs to stop me from vomiting without any success. I could not stop, and did not stop till 2pm Friday afternoon. Everytime they touched my stomach to examine me I lost control and threw up everywhere. I was really hard on me, if I wasn't being sick I was completely out of it sleeping, could not keep my eyes open.
I vaguely remember seeing Maia brought to me in theatre and having no concept of her being born at all, I was so unwell all I could concentrate on is not being sick.
Now for how well Maia is doing. Today she is 13 days old in the outside world. She has made progress in leaps and bounds, from being born on 12 July, she was in NICU1, high care to 3 days later in NICU2, which is lower intensity care, to SCBU (Special Care Baby Unit 1) early last week, to having been transferred back to the hospital that I was supposed to have her in yesterday afternoon 12 days after her birth. She was on oxygen for only 5 hours after she was born then she started breathing on her own without the machine. She did take rapid steps forward, but then went back a couple of times, first back onto oxygen for a few days, then not tolerating feeding every two hours directly into her stomach through a tube in her nose. She is now above her birth weight, which she was born 1260 grams, she lost some weight down to about 1200 grams in the first few days, but is now about 1380 grams as of yesterday, only 12 days after living in the outside world. She is my star princess and daddy and mummy is so very proud of her. I cannot believe I am a mum.
I have been expressing since day one, although I started late with expressing my colostrum, I was in no condition to express while I was sick. Yesterday I had my first appointment with the doctor to check my bp one week after I was discharged and my bp is back to normal 100/70. I have also lost 12 kilos since giving birth and I am below my pre-baby weight.
My milk supply is going really well, I think I have about 3 and a half days supply in the fridge so even if I didn't go in every day to see Maia, they would have pleanty of milk to feed her with. Expressing is hard. My mother returned to Australia on the day I was discharged from hospital, she was overseas for my brother's wedding when I was admitted into hospital and baby Maia didn't wait for her return.
I shall end my post here, it is a very long one, will post some more and pictures as well soon. I am on my way to hospital to be with my darling daughter.
Take care all, chat soon.
Barbi
. Facebook group sounds lovely! 
. I'm sorry that you are going through this right now. We will all be waiting along side you for the testing in August. 
