A unique Story: Pre-eclampsia, 3 day inducement, 4 hour labour, Post-partum haemorrhage, Neo-Natal units and a Beautiful Baby Boby!
After a very interesting week, I thought I should sit down and write down everything that happened from my perspective. It might all sound quite harrowing to the weak hearted, but really we are all fine and unscathed from a weird week!
So here goes, get a cup of tea before you start!
Wednesday
39 weeks 1 day. Check up with my normal gynaecologist. Hmmm, feeling tired and heavy! Wedding ring looking a bit tight and �sock elastic line� makes my ankle looks a bit like a sausage J. Urine shows protein is present and my blood pressure has jumped.
Not what the Gynaecologist or I wanted to hear, she warns me that it looks like I have pre-eclampsia and I need to return the next day for further tests. Baby monitoring is all good though, I lie and watch his heart rate print out appearing like a little Alpine panorama. I am sent home, under orders to rest, not even any TV!
Roger�s nursing skills excel and I have dinner in bed, lots of TLC and gentle removal of wedding ring (that reminds me to put it back on now!)
Thursday
39 weeks 2 days. Drag myself to the gynae check up at 10am, despite the rest I am still shattered and developing a headache.
Wearing �shortie socks� today, to avoid the sausage effect ;-). All the tests and my headache with �stars before the eyes� suggest that I have pre-eclampsia. So I am told that it is better to induce the baby, I need to go to hospital today!
After checking with the Birthing Clinic that I wanted to go to, the Gynae is told that they don�t want me there! (they aren�t equipped for complicated births). So off to Bruderholz hospital I go. Cathy kindly drove a worried looking Roger from work to home to pick me up and take us to the 2pm appointment.
The hospital staff are expecting me and have all my notes. They hook me up to blood pressure monitors, get me to pee in a cup (I am very good at this by now) and monitor the baby. At this point my blood pressure has dropped, but my headache and pee still indicate a problem.
Since there is something awry, the doctors decide to induce me the following morning. Roger (still looking worried) stays with me until late in the evening.
Friday
Protein gone from pee and blood pressure back to normal, I am a medical wonder � could the pre-eclampsia really have gone?
Early in the morning I am given a pessary of hormones called Prostoglandins. This is to gently kick start labour (we are warned that they sometimes don�t work). I start to get some gentle contractions, so we walk lots and try to get gravity on our side.
At about 2pm they hook me up to the baby monitor and we see that the baby�s heart rate is too high. The midwife and doctors agree that giving me a saline drip should work. Within a few minutes of the drip starting up, the heart rate is dropping and we are given the all clear.
In the early evening the contractions all but disappear. Very disappointed, Roger goes home and Naomi hangs around for a repeat performance the next day!
Saturday
The protein is still gone from my pee. This means that the doctors are really not that worried about the baby and me now, the imminent danger of pre-eclampsia is gone. But, they are keen for me to stay and continue with the inducement.
Again I start the morning with the Prostoglandins. Nothing happens all day, hardly a twinge. During the day I take up the midwife�s time as she acts as a counsellor, it was so frustrating and I was getting very bored.
At the 2pm check up baby�s heart rate is high again. So, I am hooked up on the drip once more and we wait for the effect. Slowly he calms down.
In the afternoon I was given a top up of the hormones and started to feel the contractions again. Mum arrived as a surprise, she and Roger kept me occupied during the boring bits. BUT by early evening the contractions went quiet again! Now Mum and Roger go home disappointed.
Sunday
The doctors agree that the contractions I had the past days have been enough to dilate my cervix sufficiently to start on the intra-venous inducement hormone � Oxytocin. This is the real deal when it comes to inducing, it is renowned for creating �strong� labours, but I am warned it can still take some time for baby to come. I tell Roger and Mum to come to the hospital for about 10am, no rush!
I am hooked up to the drip at about 8:45am and sit and wait for something to happen. The midwife leaves the room for a couple of minutes and I get my first �real� contraction, coupled with my waters breaking. I ring for the midwife to come back and she is joined by two doctors, who already know that I am a special case ;-). They show me the waters have a green effect, which means that the baby has pooped in the womb, this shows that he has been distressed (but they tell me it happens often). The normal thing is that they get a paediatrician to come and see the baby later, just to check him over.
By 10:15am the contractions are coming thick and fast. With the help of the midwife, I am getting into my breathing and learning how to handle them. Roger and Mum arrive thinking that they will be sitting around waiting with me again. But they open the door to the room and are immediately both dragged into their roles. Brow mopping, back rubbing etc! About 5 minutes after they get there I throw up my breakfast, so Roger is given a bowl to keep on hand.
Finding good positions for the contractions is made easier with advice from the midwife. I find the best on my hands and knees as I can rock with the contractions and my controlled breathing. Roger mops my brow and keeps eye contact with me when I need it. Mum is trained in the �right� way to back rub.
The dilation moves really fast, from 2 cm when I started at 08:45 to 4 cm around 11:00. Suddenly I am told that I am 9cm dilated and I realise that this baby is coming today! The midwife starts to arrange other equipment around me, and calls for the doctor. I then realise that it really won�t be long now!
At 13:12 baby Louie emerges with a big push. I look around, very pleased with myself. It is then that I am aware that there had been problems. Louie�s heart rate had been dropping drastically during contractions, which means that he was really stressed. I can see the printout from the monitor and recognise the patterns from my pre-labour reading.
Roger and Mum are ecstatic and take turns to leave the room to make those special phonecalls.
Roger holds Louie at first. We wait for the placenta to be �born� and then Louie is given to me to try and suckle. Whilst we concentrate on the suckling, the Doctor organises the dreaded stitching (baby came so fast and with the distress, they had to make a cut to help speed things up).
Louie is breathing noisily and so when the paediatrician comes he says that he will wait 1 hour and then come back. If the breathing doesn�t settle he will have to take him for observation. Worrying.
Then the Doctor tells me that I am bleeding too much. She explains that she cannot see where is comes from and that she must make an internal examination, after having done the stitching she tells me that this will be uncomfortable. We agree that speed is of the essence, so I must have an epidural anaesthetic, in order that she can check everything and if there is something dangerous she can act immediately (i.e. a cervical or uterine tear).
So, I have given birth to a 4.1kg boy, with 35cm head with no pain relief. Now I need an epidural!!!!
I leave Louie with Roger and Mum and am wheeled off very quickly for the investigation. I lie on the operating table, my legs and half my chest deadened and wonder how my baby and husband are doing. The time passes fast and I am told that everything is good, no tears. They have �cleaned� everything out and the bleeding it stopping now.
I go back to my room to find that Louie has been taken to intensive care. What a bombshell.
After the epidural I am shaking uncontrollably, a side-effect of some of the drugs they give. Since I have lost so much blood I am feeling pretty horrible. Roger sits and looks after me, Mum goes back to our apartment as she can�t really do much for us.
The midwives cannot get a vein for blood tests and they need to call another anaesthetist in order to get the red stuff. It takes ages to find somewhere and then the vein is so tiny she has to wait for it to drip slowly into the container.
The doctor returns to see how I am doing and breaks it to me that she thinks I shouldn�t breastfeed Louie. This is because I take a medication that has very little research, so the effects are unknown. I explain that during pregnancy I tried to come off it, but it didn�t work out, so we know that coming of it in order to breastfeed is not an option. She says that she will bring my case to the next meeting with all the doctors and professors the following morning. They will give me their collective opinion.
Slowly I get my legs back, but I am sad that Louie is away and I cannot cuddle him. Once I am well enough to go to a ward the Midwives drive me on my bed via the intensive care unit. I am so tired and still shaking a little, I cannot really take it all in. My baby hooked up to machines, beeping all around and I am powerless to help.
Roger must have felt AWFUL at this time, seeing me so weak and Louie hooked up. What a pair.
That evening Roger stays late, I am in a private room getting settled in. I sleep deeply after all that happened, I realise that if Louie had been with me I probably couldn�t have coped alone. I concentrate on getting strong, hoping that he will be with me the following day.
Mum decides not to take her flight home today and stays an extra night.
Monday
I get my catheter removed, phew! I hate being hooked up to stuff. But I am on a drip, the nurse tells me that will be for at little while longer.
I am still very weak, my blood pressure is low and I am understandably anaemic! I get the nurse to help me to the loo and catch a glimpse of a ghost in the mirror. I have puffy eyes, I am VERY dizzy and my skin is white as a sheet. Just going to the loo takes it out of me and I sleep lots.
The nurse takes me in a wheelchair to see my little boy. I cry seeing him there. He is doing okay, but they tell me he still needs observing � having swallowed and breathed in the poopy green amniotic fluid.
I finally get rid of the drip sometime in the afternoon and start on the iron supplements for replacing all that lost blood.
Mum goes for her flight today, but cannot visit Louie before she goes, as the visiting times for �non-parents� don�t fit.
With my energy low, Roger made sure that Louie and I were kept posted on each other�s progress.
Tuesday
Roger arrives and takes me to see Louie. We are told that he might come back to me late in the afternoon. I am ecstatic.
Roger has to go to work in the afternoon and at about lunchtime I am told that Louie has been given the all clear and will be back with me in an hour or so.
My son is wheeled into my room in his cot and we start with a big cuddle. I don�t want to put him down; we sleep together in my bed.
Roger comes back and our family is together again.
The rest of the week
Louie, Roger and I get used to our new family status!
I nag the nurses and doctors to let me home on Friday. It works as I convince them that despite my anaemia I will not be overexerting myself.
I am given a drip of iron supplement on Friday morning and in the afternoon Roger arrives to take us home. Now life really starts!!!!!!!
