Taylah"s birth story with pics ( warning traumatic with happy ending )
After going through IVF to fall pregnant, catching parvo virus & having a bad fall my day was finally here ! i was booked into the hospital on the 25th of January for what was supposed to be a very standard elective c-section ( i had an emcs with my first daughter almost 8 years ago )
but it wasn't to be - just like most of my pregnancy it was full of worry well in actual fact terrifying , the scariest day of my life !
all was going to plan, i was wheeled into the operating room & was given a spinal block then my husband was called back in so he would be there for the birth of our daughter & of course to hold my hand, the surgeon made the incision & that's where things started to go wrong, for some reason unknown to doctors my heart rate dropped dramatically down to around 30 & i immediately did not feel well at all - i felt sick to the stomach & my head felt full of pressure like it was about to explode, i informed the antithesis & he told me he was giving me some medication to bring my heart rate back up, well a bit of panic set in for my health as this did not work & had to be repeated another 2 times so in total i was given 3 doses of medication to bring my heart rate back to normal. this seemed to work & the room settled, it was time to pull my daughter out, she was born at exactly 10am & that's where the real trouble began, i saw a quick glimpse of her as she was taken out of me & they said they would hand her to me in a minute - that never happened, within seconds i heard them on the phone saying NEONATAL EMERGENCY NEONATAL EMERGENCY CODE THIS & CODE THAT -my heart sank i immediately began crying knowing my baby was in danger, i turned to my husband so frightened asking him is she ok? whats going on? his response was i cant see anything there are too many people around her because within 30 secs there were a team of specialists there to treat her, i could hear them saying we are incubating her & counting giving her tiny heart chest compression's, the last thing i heard was she is not responding lets move her & as quick as that she & the specialist team were gone , leaving me on the operating table crying my eyes out terrified, thay gave me drugs to calm me down because my blood pressure was way too high & said if i didn't calm down they would have to put me to sleep to sew me up, that's the last thing i wanted so i tried my best to stay calm, about 10 mins later while i was still be put back together a specialist came & told me they got her heart going but it wasnt for at least 4 mins & they had tubes down her throat helping her breathe & he would let me know how she was as soon as they knew anything further, i asked if my husband could go be with her & he said not at this point.
They finished putting me back together & wheeled me into recovery, i was shaking like crazy, my blood pressure was sky high, i was freezing , numb & so very scared, my husband & i sat there not saying much just looking at each other, every now & then he would say don't worry its going to be ok but we both knew he was just as scared as me, while we were in recovery we kept asking the nurses to go call someone & find out what was going on but the only reply we would get from the NICU was we are working on her, 2 hours had passed & we started thinking the worst saying to each other this is taking too long it can't be good at all & then i was taken up to the maternity ward where i could hear babies crying & i just kept thinking i don't have my baby, the nurse from recovery handed me over to the midwife in maternity & she wanted to check me - i said NO i just want you to check on my baby. she went away breifly & came back saying someone from NICU would be there soon to speak to us, we waited for around another hour & finally someone arrived to speak to us .
The news was as good as it could be at the time - she was alive, her heart was beating & she was breathing on her own but she wasnt very responsive, they immediately cooled her (put ice packs all over her) to prevent any damage due to lack of oxygen & said this process will go on for three days & its just a waiting game to see how she goes, in the mean time of course they were doing every test under the sun to see why this happened & if there was going to be anything wrong with her, they said my husband was allowd to go down & see her within the next hour.
My husband went to see our baby & she was purple from the cooling & had tubes down her throat & needles & drips stuck in her everywhere as well as things stuck all over her head to test brain wave activity etc, he took a video for me & it was just devastating to see my brand new baby looking like that, i begged them to put me in a wheel chair & take me to her but they refused as i had just come out of surgery.
by 8pm that night i was so upset & my blood pressure was still really high so they thought it might calm me if they wheeled me down to NICU in my bed but warned i may not be able to get right up to her because of the lack of room in the NICU, the staff at the NICU were lovely & moved some tiny premmy babies out of the way so i could at least touch her hand , i was still really drugged from the morphein they gave me to calm me that i was struggling to keep my eyes open but was just so happy to see her.
in the middle of the night a nurse came in from NICU my heart dropped i thought it was bad news but she came to tell me my baby was doing well & they wanted to express some of my milk to feed to her through a syringe so a midwife squeezed & squeezed to get some out .
the next morning came & at 6am i begged the midwife to take the catheder out so i could get into a wheel chair & go & see my baby , which they did & although i was in a huge amount of pain i got there & was greeted with great news - all her tests including brain, liver & kidneys were all normal, they told me she has been through a major trauma & will probably be in the NICU for weeks , by that night she had improved so much they said they would start to rewarm her slowly over the next 12 hours which they did & she started to improve even more , i was finally able to hold my precious girl & try to breast feed her, which she refused as she was being fed via drips etc but they still wanted me to try, the doctors were calling her fast recovery a miracle, they even drew a pair of boxing gloves on her name tag because they said she was a champion fighter, we spent the next 4 days in the NICU where i was going down every 3-4 hours with expressed milk & trying to breast feed her, it was exhausting but she began to feed & just got so much better each day & passed every single test with flying colours that they discharged her & we got to come home.
since being home our beautiful Harper Jade has gone from strength to strength she is eating sleeping & pooping perfectly & i am so very much in love with her and amazed at the strength & resilience she has shown after everything she has been through in her short life
trying to post more photos - try again soon
they can watch the baby very closely and can help if baby shows signs of virus. I hope it does not come to that though. 
