Thank you for thinking of me
we’re both still in the same hospital. Little guy is doing great. We know we have a long 3 months ahead of us as we have been told to expect him to be here until his actual due date (20/11), but so far he’s hit his little milestones and is having what seems like one less thing on him each day tubes/wires wise. He really is totally healthy and as expected for a now 28 week old GA baby , so that’s a massive relief, I’m on a special ward on the MCU ward now that only has women with babies in NICU so I am seeing how fortunate we really are in that sense as not everyone has that even with a full term baby.
They haven’t been able to fully stabilise my BP yet though they have got it down, that’s why I’m still in the hospital as they are keeping me under observation until they find the right one/dosage for me. But tbh I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus after the emergency c section so glad I just have to go to another floor to see my little boy rather than travelling to and from opposite ends of London.
I know I kind of went from keeping you guys updated to “oh he’s here now” and have been meaning to elaborate a bit as I know some find these things helpful. And sometimes knowing only half the reason something went “wrong” can be more anxiety inducing. The whole thing was a crazy experience that I dont think I’ve fully processed yet. Even though there were some amazing staff at the hospital and midwives who have come out of their way to check I’m alright. The whole thing felt like a weird nightmare. I was up for 2 days constantly on one of those machines where they strap the sensors to your tummy to check the baby. They tried to let me sleep but if I moved in my sleep I would knock the sensors and need to start again. I had to get a perfect 60mins on that machine meeting all the criteria, but partly because the baby was small he was easily able to move away. I kept being told different things, one minute I would be kept in hospital and my BP managed until the baby could be more safely delivered. Then it was that we would need to deliver now. I was in tears because I was terrified for my baby. Obviously all this didn’t help the blood pressure which kept having to be taken every hour. I felt like I was taking the biggest test/exam of my life and my baby’s and even my life were on the line if I failed one way or the other. Eventually even though they managed to keep him still for a long enough to find his heartbeat was consistent and he was moving, I wasn’t passing the test because there wasn’t enough variation in the heartbeat. They expect to see a slight variation in beat when he moves. The fact it was staying in one place means he could be a bit stressed. I was also having regular ultrasounds to check the blood flow from the placenta and apparently that was getting worse. This accompanied by regular blood tests was basically 48hrs of hell. They decided the best thing was to get him out to avoid foetal distress and not risk me becoming éclamptic. The c section was not the best experience of course. Despite the amazing calming surgeons explaining everything to me, because of the situation it was never going to be great. It was under general anaesthesia so they had to get the catheter in and my tummy ready while I was still awake which was pretty terrifying. This is because they have to get the baby out quickly and not let him be effected by the anaesthetic. I just remember being freezing cold and terrified restricted on the operating table and not sure if I was going to wake up and if I did if my baby would be ok. My partner was allowed to stay with me until I was asleep which was one thing, in fact he was there for the whole ordeal and amazing. I have so much respect for any woman that does this journey alone. I couldn’t have done any of this without him. But the context of the situation didn’t help. I can still see how a planned c section would be a lovely calm experience, but this was pretty traumatic.
The midwives I had were fantastic and incredibly sweet and have been to check up on me in the ward a couple of times. One I almost felt like her whole job was to keep hugging me and holding my hand while I cried.
There’s been a lot of concern from the hospital team in general about how the experience will have effected my mental health and I’ve been referred to a specialist team which is nice that that’s a consideration. I have cried a bit the past few days, which I think is partly “baby blues”, but cried more when I looked up the cures and it listed things like “take a break from your baby and have a shower” ha. I definitely feel robbed of a lot of experiences at the moment. I keep seeing people going past holding their newborns and would love them to know how lucky they really are. I would give anything to hold my baby.
The good news is the consultant I spoke to has said it’s very much something that effects first pregnancies more. If I have it in the second it will be later and to a lesser extent.
Also, I think there’s a possibility I was higher risk but was missed due to how the questions are. Mainly they ask if you have a family history of high blood pressure, I do not, no one in my family has had hypertension, however, what they didn’t ask me, and which I now think is important if there is a family history of stroke, especially <60. I now think the strokes in my family were blood pressure related, as they easily could have gone years without knowing they had high blood pressure. I think it’s a big misstep. The other for me was that I lost a significant amount of weight before I got pregnant, meaning I wasn’t at risk due to my weight, but really the physical effects of that extra weight may have still had an impact.
I wish I’d been identified as needing aspirin sooner in the pregnancy basically, rather than at the 20 week scan when they spotted a placenta blood flow issue.
I’ve been keeping myself busy and entertained in hospital with the Jack Monroe threads on here. Amazing as there’s just so much and it’s not got anything that reminds me of baby things
He’s on tubes to eat and breathe but that me all normal for his gestation. So I’m trying to keep positive. I got to see him for the first time this morning when they wheeled my bed to NICU. He is tiny but absolutely perfect 
to the mean midwife from triage) where I laboured on all fours with gas and air and finally got my epidural at 9cm. Two hours later I pushed out beautiful baby boy out in 15 minutes.
Feel so much better about everything right now. Although crazy thing is, remember when I said a few pages back about spotting? Turns out the cause was that I had two sacs! Twins! One didn’t make it. I have no twins in my family so I was shocked.
