While you were sleeping…

Advanced warning, this blog is going to talk about my traumatic birth experience… if you can’t handle the following fact, then I suggest you don’t continue on…I was put to sleep under general aesthetic not knowing if I was going to wake up to my baby being dead or alive.

For those of you that are still with me,  get comfy, maybe with some tea – it’s going to be a long one! The most important thing I want you to take away from this is how important it is to listen to your body, that and having faith in the glorious NHS.

On Saturday 30th November, at around 4pm, I realised I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt the baby move. We had gone into town for the Santa run, and I had a sugary hot chocolate, which would normally make him go crazy in my tummy, but nothing had happened. So when we got home I had a lie down.. nothing, then a bath.. nothing. Throughout my pregnancy I had be diligently counting kicks, following the advise from the wonderful Kicks Count charity – https://www.kickscount.org.uk, who emphasise how important it is to monitor movements, and be aware of any changes in your babies normal pattern. Ultimately knowing this helped save Isaac’s life.

I came downstairs and insisted to Matt that we go to the hospital immediately. Something just didn’t feel right. Mum came round within about ten minutes to look after Dylan and put him to bed (I am sure she teleports somehow), and we headed to the hospital.

If Matt was unkind, I am sure he would have told me he thought I was being neurotic/OCD about it, but he’s not unkind, he is supportive and understands that I lived every day of the pregnancy expecting to bleed and lose another child. We got up the ward and luckily were seen incredibly quickly. They took us into a side room and I immediately started crying – it was the same room in which they told use that Max was going to die, having lost all my waters. I thought it was a sign. The midwife was very sweet and offered to move us to another room, but I just wanted to “get on with it”. I was put on the heart rate monitor and immediately there it was, happily beating away at 140 beat per minute – or so we thought. The sobs of relief came, but were short lived.

The midwife left the room and within minutes the machine started going crazy, Matt went out into the corridor to find her, as thought maybe it had come unhooked etc. Another midwife came in – Shona – to readjust the pads, but it wasn’t working, his heartbeat was going below 100 (something termed Bradycardia) and I am pretty sure it flashed up lowest at 63 BPM, there was definitely an 80. Then suddenly there was also a Dr in the room, who did an internal check to see whether I was actually in labour or at least dilated, I was not. By this point I was in a lot of pain, I thought it was contractions, it felt like he was twisting in my tummy.

Next thing I knew they said we were going through to “delivery”. I naively thought this meant they were going to break my waters, but then the reality became clear as I was rushed down a corridor, with Matt practically running behind us, as alarms were blaring and people were appearing left, right and center.  It was then I saw the door we were going through had a sign saying “theatre” – I was still confused at this point – they wouldn’t let Matt in, and I thought it was just because he needed to scrub before theatre and that I was having an epidural, all I remember is Matt calling “I love you Becky” before doors closed on him. They told me a little white lie and said he was getting changed when I begged for him to be let in.

By that point there were people everywhere, someone doing a cannula in each hand, someone putting towels across me, painting my tummy with weird dye, a catheter, oxygen mask, and being told to drink some horrible tasting liquid. I still didn’t really understand that I would be asleep for the birth of my baby. I was thinking, this is it, I am going to have yet another dead baby. Nature had played a cruel joke on us letting us get to over 37 weeks, and now I was going to lose my rainbow baby. The last thing I remember doing was screaming at poor Shona, “DON’T LET THIS BABY DIE!!!!!” over and over. I went to sleep not knowing whether he was alive or dead. Something that I will never ever get over. We were later told that Matt wasn’t allowed in the room because a) they don’t let husbands in as it takes up time to scrub etc and b) it’s thought to be too traumatic for the husband to see his wife being put to sleep and baby being born that way, but I still wish one of us had been there to see the little man being born.

Two hours later I woke up in a small dark room, where Matt had been all that time – Isaac having been given to him twenty minutes after we went into theatre (poor Matt – when I think about him being on his own in there not knowing what was happening with his wife or child makes my heart ache with sadness for him).  Bless him, Matt had done skin to skin with Isaac, and called my mum to let her know the baby had arrived safely. Mum then had to stay the night in our bed and look after Dylan for the next few days – luckily he adores his Granny and Grandpa. It’s still hard to come to terms with thought that my mum and dad knew my baby was alive before I did.

Apparently when I came round the first thing I did was start shouting about the radio being too loud (there was no radio). When I opened eyes properly, there he was being held up to me in a little red hat and a towel. I looked at Matt and said “is he alive?” (the red hat in my head signified danger/end as Royal Surrey use a traffic light system for hats for their new borns). Then they handed me my miracle.

I felt like I was in a weird dream. The pain I was in then showed me I was definitely NOT in a dream!! Unlike an epidural, where the pain relief is still present for a few hours after c section, with a general, there was no such relief sadly – which is one of the reasons why they only do it as a LAST resort. They gave me a morphine drip, but for some STUPID reason, I didn’t want to use it, I think I just wanted to be as compos mentis as possible, to be in control of my mind, to absorb what had happened.

They were monitoring me every two hours, as I had lost over 1.7 litres of blood, and there was talk of a transfusion. But they were both surprised and happy that I seemed “really well” given the amount I had lost, and my blood pressure and iron etc were all fine. The staff were very sweet and got a large black beanbag for Matt to try and sleep on next to me – although his legs still hung off the end. There were times during the next few hours where I lay in the darkness and thought I was in the same recovery room, like after we lost Isabella and I’d had a D&C after loss, but then suddenly Isaac would make a noise in the hospital cot, and I would remember that this time my baby was alive.

Within a couple of hours I was able to get Isaac to breastfeed, which I was so happy about, but then bubble burst slightly when they told me yet another side effect of a general was that it delays your milk coming in. He was so little (6lbs and then dropped to 5lb 6oz over the next 48 hours), and I just instantly felt like I wanted to protect and nurture him. It was hard though not being able to pick him up myself, but every time I moved my tummy hurt and I still had a catheter in, as well as two cannulas.

At about 7.30am (12 hours after he was born), at my request we were moved to a private room – I just had spent so much time on wards at that hospital in the previous year that I just couldn’t bear the thought of being on one again. I wanted the three of us to have some privacy, I needed the quiet to process what had happened. One of the Drs came in and said two things that will always stay with me. One was that we were lucky the little man wasn’t in SCBU given the circumstances of his birth (turns out he had the cord wrapped round his neck), and secondly that we were “moments away from the worst case scenario”. My blood ran cold when she said this. So many what if’s – what if we had dinner first before leaving, what if we had stayed to put Dylan to bed, what if mum had taken longer to come round to the house, and what if he had kicked just once? I know if he had kicked just once I would have not insisted on going to the hospital and just gone to bed.

The first full day (Sunday) went in a blur, various checks and all was going well.  Matt’s mum, dad and nan all came to visit us, and it was lovely for them to meet their latest grandson. Matt went home to catch up on some sleep and Isaac and I watched Netflix! (he would only sleep on me).

On Monday I was delighted that Wendy was able to take a break in her shift and visit us. It was so nice seeing her, she has been with me at every step of this journey. She is such an amazingly kind person, and I feel really really blessed to have her in my life now.  She will always be Isaac’s “aunty Wendy”.

Then jaundice hit! The first six hours under the lamp in the afternoon went well, and it didn’t seem to bother him. During this time we had a visit from the lovely Jacqui Tingle, she was brilliant – Isaac decided at that moment to be sick everywhere! She helped me clean it all up and has such a calming presence.

Matt went home to pick Dylan up, as we really wanted to keep things as normal as possible for him. My parents came to visit, Mum armed with various gifts for Isaac and me, and it was lovely hearing what Dylan had been up to for the last couple of days. Unfortunately the same calmness  under the light was not apparent for the second session of eight hours. He WOULD NOT settle. Poor like thing just wanted to feed or cuddle. There was an AMAZING transitional care nurse – called Sheena – who basically spent her entire shift with me trying various ways to settle him. At one point I was even just in my pants sitting in a chair with the blue light shining down on us whilst I fed Isaac – me covering my eyes with a sleep mask. At 4am I was at my wits end, but he was finally allowed out from under the light, the lovely Sheena took him for a couple of hours so I could get some much needed sleep.

On the Tuesday morning I saw a Dr and she said we could both go home. The relief was overwhelming. I just wanted to see Dylan, and let him meet his little brother.

I will be forever grateful to the midwifes, Drs and nurses at the RSCH. I can not fault the staff – they work so hard, such long hours, and never complain. I am sure I was a pain in the bum at various points, but they were always so kind. I am in NO DOUBT that it is due to their speed at getting Isaac out that saved his life. That at the work that Kicks Count do in making sure mums are aware of their babies movements.

As I said at the beginning, if any mums to be are reading this, LISTEN to your body, don’t worry about being neurotic or bothering people with questions etc, do what you have to do to keep your bump safe. If I hadn’t listened to my body, and trusted my instincts, Isaac would be another one of my babies to not take a breath, and another missing piece of the Owen family puzzle.

I would like to thank all my family and friends, especially my wonderful husband, my parents, my sister and my bestie Katy Pelling White –  who have really be my rocks during the journey for number two over the last two years. They have dealt with all the lows, and I know they are delighted for me now we have finally got our “high”. I couldn’t have done it without them.

I will continue to blog, moving from our journey to complete our family, to the both the good times and the hard times of being a mum raising two boys, so I hope you will all stay with me 🙂