going_crazy
Still learning.....!
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2010
- Messages
- 2,864
- Reaction score
- 0
So..... I finally have 5 minutes to write my birth story! 
I was due on 8th October, and had to go into the day assesment unit for monitoring that morning as I had gestational diabetes and I had refused an induction at 38 weeks. I had woken up feeling fine, just a few niggles which I ignored. I took my older children to school and went to the hospital where I was strapped onto the monitor. Baby was fine and I was having a few irregular contractions, which were showing up on the trace. They asked me if I could feel them, which I could, but they weren't bothering me in the slighest.
I was allowed to go home after an hour and was told that if I hadn't gone into labour by Monday 11th, I would need to go back in to discuss induction.
So, I spent the afternoon with my eldest DD who was off school sick!
At 3:30 I sent my mum to pick my other 2 DD's up from school while I walked to the doc's with my eldest. I was still having niggles but they didn't stop me from getting on with things!
When I sent my 3 DD's to bed at about 8:30pm, I realised that the 'niggles' were actually every 10mins - and very regular!
I kept timing them and they were lasting about 30secs each and were getting slightly closer together and a little more uncomfortable. I had a bath, then spent some time on my birthing ball, and by 10:30pm I decided to put my TENS machine on to help with the stronger contractions. I was managing well until about midnight when I knew it was time to call my friend to come and look after my DD's. I called the labour ward at 12:15am and they told me to come in asap as my last labour was quick!
My friend turned up at 12:45am and I set off to the hospital, and by this time, my contractions were every 4 mins and lasting about 1 min each. I was also finding it harder to talk through the contractions, so I knew I was well on the way to having my baby!
I got to the hopital at 12:50am and was walking to the labour ward when we realised that they had closed off half the hospital and we had to go on the worlds biggest detour! I must've looked bad as a paramedic came over and offered me a wheelchair, which I refused!
Finally got to the labour ward by 1:20am and was taken straight to the delivery room. The midwife examined me and told me I was 6cm dilated
I was offered gas and air, and I took it - loved it too!!
After that, my labour felt quick and before I knew it, I was ready to push. I remember the midwife telling me to wait until they had examined me again, but I told them that this baby was not going to wait!!
I ended up pushing for 20mins, but was panicing a fair amount when baby's heart kept dipping really low, and the midwife had to keep rubbing my tummy to get her heart rate up
When my baby was born, she was taken to the resucitaire where she needed a small amount of stimulation to get going properly (Little did I know that this was the first warning sign of something more serious). The next thing I remember is feeling extremely cold and shivering uncontrollably and telling the midwife that I didn't feel well. I tried to sit up a bit on the bed, and I heard my hubby shouting that there was blood pouring out of me
Turns out that I had lost approximately 800ml of blood 
My discharge summary states that my 1st stage was 4hrs, 2nd stage 25mins 3rd stage 6mins.
My baby was born at 2:55am and weighed 9lb 6oz
I had a shower, some toast to eat then was taken to the maternity ward
The rest is in a spoiler as it is what happened next and I know some have already read it!
Anyway - here are some piccies of her first 3 weeks of her hectic life!
(1) At birth
(2) Before surgery
(3) After Surgery
(4) 11 days old
(5) Today
I was due on 8th October, and had to go into the day assesment unit for monitoring that morning as I had gestational diabetes and I had refused an induction at 38 weeks. I had woken up feeling fine, just a few niggles which I ignored. I took my older children to school and went to the hospital where I was strapped onto the monitor. Baby was fine and I was having a few irregular contractions, which were showing up on the trace. They asked me if I could feel them, which I could, but they weren't bothering me in the slighest.
I was allowed to go home after an hour and was told that if I hadn't gone into labour by Monday 11th, I would need to go back in to discuss induction.
So, I spent the afternoon with my eldest DD who was off school sick!
At 3:30 I sent my mum to pick my other 2 DD's up from school while I walked to the doc's with my eldest. I was still having niggles but they didn't stop me from getting on with things!
When I sent my 3 DD's to bed at about 8:30pm, I realised that the 'niggles' were actually every 10mins - and very regular!
I kept timing them and they were lasting about 30secs each and were getting slightly closer together and a little more uncomfortable. I had a bath, then spent some time on my birthing ball, and by 10:30pm I decided to put my TENS machine on to help with the stronger contractions. I was managing well until about midnight when I knew it was time to call my friend to come and look after my DD's. I called the labour ward at 12:15am and they told me to come in asap as my last labour was quick!
My friend turned up at 12:45am and I set off to the hospital, and by this time, my contractions were every 4 mins and lasting about 1 min each. I was also finding it harder to talk through the contractions, so I knew I was well on the way to having my baby!
I got to the hopital at 12:50am and was walking to the labour ward when we realised that they had closed off half the hospital and we had to go on the worlds biggest detour! I must've looked bad as a paramedic came over and offered me a wheelchair, which I refused!
Finally got to the labour ward by 1:20am and was taken straight to the delivery room. The midwife examined me and told me I was 6cm dilated
I was offered gas and air, and I took it - loved it too!!
After that, my labour felt quick and before I knew it, I was ready to push. I remember the midwife telling me to wait until they had examined me again, but I told them that this baby was not going to wait!!
I ended up pushing for 20mins, but was panicing a fair amount when baby's heart kept dipping really low, and the midwife had to keep rubbing my tummy to get her heart rate up
When my baby was born, she was taken to the resucitaire where she needed a small amount of stimulation to get going properly (Little did I know that this was the first warning sign of something more serious). The next thing I remember is feeling extremely cold and shivering uncontrollably and telling the midwife that I didn't feel well. I tried to sit up a bit on the bed, and I heard my hubby shouting that there was blood pouring out of me
Turns out that I had lost approximately 800ml of blood My discharge summary states that my 1st stage was 4hrs, 2nd stage 25mins 3rd stage 6mins.
My baby was born at 2:55am and weighed 9lb 6oz
I had a shower, some toast to eat then was taken to the maternity ward
The rest is in a spoiler as it is what happened next and I know some have already read it!
9th October at 5pm the doctor came to do the new baby health check so that I could go home. All the checks were ok until she listened to baby's heart when she found a murmor. At the time she wasn't too concerned but she told me I'd have to stay in the night so that baby could be re-checked in the morning.
10th October 9am the same doctor came round and had another listen to baby's heart, when she told me that she could still hear a murmor and also a 'click' and she wanted to check baby's saturation (oxygen) levels. 12pm they brought a machine around that checks the saturation levels and it was found that her levels were 75% right side and 81% left side (they should be nearer 95-100%). So, baby was taken straight to the NICU for a heart scan
This was at about 1pm and I was told it would take about 20mins. AN HOUR later they were still scanning and I knew that they had found something bad. Me and hubby were taken into a side room by the neonatal doctor and told that baby had serious heart disease, which they believed was a severe form of Truncus (feel free to google!). The doctor also gave us the impression that nothing could be done for this particular case and that we should prepare not to take baby home
However, we were also told that baby was going to be rushed to Evelina Children's hospital where they had specialist doctors (the best I might add!) who could give us a better idea of what would happen next. I went home to tell my other DD's that baby wasn't very well and that she needed to go to a special hospital. After a good cry together, we had a phonecall telling us that the ambulance was on its way to pick baby up and we should get back to the hospital asap.
At 5pm we were back at the NICU and the team from the South Thames Retrieval Service were already preparing baby for transfer. This was very scary at first, as my baby was attached to all sorts of machines and monitors, but the team told me everything that was happening and somehow I managed to take it all in. Baby was strapped into a special incubator and taken to the ambulance where both of us were taken (using blue lights and sirens!) to the PICU at Evelina (hubby had to take a cab).
When we got there, baby was transferred to bed number 10 and hooked up to more monitors and more drugs The cardiac doctor came and spoke to us and brought the scanning machine to do an Echo on baby. We waited for what seemed like hours (but was 45mins) when the doctor came to explain what he had found.
We were told that baby has TGA, VSD and pulmonary stenosis (again, feel free to google!), but we were also told that there was hope for her
Since then, baby had a balloon septostomy at 2 days old (which failed) and she also had a B-T shunt put into her heart at 4 days old, which so far, has worked! She will need open heart surgery at about 8 months, but until that time she should cope fairly well!
She spent 5 days in PICU, then 5 days in the HDU, then a further 7 days on the ward and was finally allowed home when she was 18 days old She has got regular appointments and her wound is still in the healing process, but it's so nice to have her home with the rest of the family where she belongs!
Thank you if you've read it to the end - I actually feel better having written it all down. At the time it was the worst experience of my life - especially with hormones running wild!
10th October 9am the same doctor came round and had another listen to baby's heart, when she told me that she could still hear a murmor and also a 'click' and she wanted to check baby's saturation (oxygen) levels. 12pm they brought a machine around that checks the saturation levels and it was found that her levels were 75% right side and 81% left side (they should be nearer 95-100%). So, baby was taken straight to the NICU for a heart scan
This was at about 1pm and I was told it would take about 20mins. AN HOUR later they were still scanning and I knew that they had found something bad. Me and hubby were taken into a side room by the neonatal doctor and told that baby had serious heart disease, which they believed was a severe form of Truncus (feel free to google!). The doctor also gave us the impression that nothing could be done for this particular case and that we should prepare not to take baby home However, we were also told that baby was going to be rushed to Evelina Children's hospital where they had specialist doctors (the best I might add!
) who could give us a better idea of what would happen next. I went home to tell my other DD's that baby wasn't very well and that she needed to go to a special hospital. After a good cry together, we had a phonecall telling us that the ambulance was on its way to pick baby up and we should get back to the hospital asap.At 5pm we were back at the NICU and the team from the South Thames Retrieval Service were already preparing baby for transfer. This was very scary at first, as my baby was attached to all sorts of machines and monitors, but the team told me everything that was happening and somehow I managed to take it all in. Baby was strapped into a special incubator and taken to the ambulance where both of us were taken (using blue lights and sirens!) to the PICU at Evelina (hubby had to take a cab).
When we got there, baby was transferred to bed number 10 and hooked up to more monitors and more drugs
The cardiac doctor came and spoke to us and brought the scanning machine to do an Echo on baby. We waited for what seemed like hours (but was 45mins) when the doctor came to explain what he had found.We were told that baby has TGA, VSD and pulmonary stenosis (again, feel free to google!), but we were also told that there was hope for her
Since then, baby had a balloon septostomy at 2 days old (which failed) and she also had a B-T shunt put into her heart at 4 days old, which so far, has worked! She will need open heart surgery at about 8 months, but until that time she should cope fairly well!
She spent 5 days in PICU, then 5 days in the HDU, then a further 7 days on the ward and was finally allowed home when she was 18 days old
She has got regular appointments and her wound is still in the healing process, but it's so nice to have her home with the rest of the family where she belongs! Thank you if you've read it to the end - I actually feel better having written it all down. At the time it was the worst experience of my life - especially with hormones running wild!
Anyway - here are some piccies of her first 3 weeks of her hectic life!
(1) At birth
(2) Before surgery
(3) After Surgery
(4) 11 days old
(5) Today
You guys have been through so much! I'm so glad you have such a little fighter on your hands. Good luck with everything. 
