Hi everyone!
Well it´s been a very eventful few days but I´m finally a mummy.
Emma Noelia was born at 8.15pm on Saturday 8th September weighing 3.160kg. She was a skinny little thing but has these huge long legs! I don´t know how she fit in there for so long!
WARNING for the pregnant ladies! My labour wasn´t the easiest so don´t read the next couple of paragraphs if its likely to make you nervous!!
My waters broke at 6.30pm on the Friday (a proper gush like in all the films - thank God I was at home and not in public!) and contractions started within an hour. I was told to spend the first night on the ward and they would come and induce me at 7am and take me to delivery unless I started to have minute long contractions every 3 minutes beforehand. Well, by 4am contractions were every 3 minutes, VERY strong and lasting a minute and a half but I was told that there was no room in delivery so had to stay on the ward!! We don´t have any pain relief or gas and air here so I was really suffering
but had no other option. At 7am I was all ready to go down to delivery (and in so much pain) but noone came for me even when DH kicked off. They said that it was unusually busy and that people were turning up at the hospital already quite dilated. At that point nobody had checked me for 3 hours so they had no idea how dilated I was! At 8.30am DH really starting getting angry and we managed to get taken down to another room where my contractions were measured again. This really wasn´t necessary as I was in obvious agony every couple of minutes, couldn´t walk, couldn´t really talk, etc but what could we do. Anyway around 9.15 the nurse who was looking after me phoned delivery to say I had to go now! By 9.30am I was in my own room ready and waiting for Emma to arrive. All my contractions were in my back and bum and I felt nothing at all in my bump which was strange. Anyway by 11am I couldn´t take any more and had to request an epidural. I had hoped not to need one but having no pain relief at all was just too much for me to take. I´m not soft but wasn´t prepared for that pain at all! Again I was told it was very busy and the anaesthetist was with some other women and would get to me soon. She turned up at 2pm when I was already 7cm dilated and really thought that my body wouldn´t take anymore. Luckily for her I was in too much pain and too tired to be angry! The epidural was brilliant but although I couldn´t feel any pain I could still feel and move my feet and legs to some extent which I hadn´t expected. I should have known then that something wasn´t right!
At around 6pm I was finally fully dilated but was told that Emma wasn´t low enough to be able to begin pushing so had to wait an hour. I had started to feel some pain in my back again so the midwife gave my something straight into my arm to top up the epidural and told me that it was normal and would go again. It didn´t!! The pain just kept on getting worse again although nothing like my earlier contractions. The midwife also noticed that Emma´s heart rate was lowering quite a lot when I had some very strong contractions so they had connect a monitor to her head whilst she was still inside to measure it more closely. They were worried as my waters had broken 24 hours earlier which is quite a long time and my temperature was rising quite considerably. Anyway, around 7.30pm, the midwife came and told me to start pushing but it was clear to everyone that Emma wasn´t for coming out, my temp was still rising and I was losing some meconium tinged liquid so Emma was obviously in some distress. I was taken (without DH) to a special delivery room used for interventions where a team of 4 gynes and midwives first had to take blood from Emma to check her pH levels and then try and manually turn her as I pushed as it turned out she was facing the wrong way. It was pretty scary especially as I had one midwife knelt on my bed with one leg at each side of my head pushing with all her force on my bump! It was soooo painful! All this time the pain in my back had returned too! Anyway at 8.10 they called for DH and with one big push out she came with the cord wrapped twice around her neck. I burst into uncontrollable tears and they rushed her off to get checked over. This isn´t normally done but as she had been in distress and it had all been fairly traumatic for her it was for the best.
Well, I then pushed out the placenta and they brought Emma to me but I could hear them talking about soething not being right. I was told that my placenta had separated in two and that part was stuck inside me. They took Emma off me and tried to reach in there and get it out but I was in a lot of pain and their efforts weren´t working so I was quickly put under general anaesthetic for them to be able to remove it. When I woke up there was about 7 doctors, nrses and midwives in with me but everything was fine and DH was alllowed to return with Emma. I was a mummy! A very groggy one, but a mummy!
Well, now for the bad part... On Monday we were told that the doctors had noticed a possible problem with Emma´s heart and had to be taken for tests. She was diagnosed with a problem in which part of the wall between two chambers hasn´t formed so oxygenised blood and non oxygenised blood are mixing together. Also, the duct that takes her blood to the lungs isn´t wide enough. I still find it very difficult to talk (or write) about it but basically she will be operated on at 6 months or if it doesn´t look like she´ll make it to 6 months she will have one smaller operation when she needs it and another after. We have been told that from now on our lives will be lived pretty much at the hospital and have to see cardiologists every 3-4 days to begin with so that they can monitor her progress. After the op, if all goes well she will be able to lead a normal life but will always be "delicate" in their words and will never be able to sports or anything of that nature. She will probably get worse as she gets older but it isn´t really known if it will affect her life expectancy as the moment. I can´t even begin to think about what will happen if the op doesn´t go well. I am a bit of a mess and both me and DH are trying to stay positive but it´s difficult. She is just so perfect to us and you would never know that she has a problem so it´s hard to comprehend when you look at her that she has an imperfection which is so important.
Well, that´s been my week...
...I am sure everything will be fine and soon you get your :BFP:...
