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Well, it should have been simple right??!!!!! Have a baby they said, it'll be easy they said....and it wasn't!! Was I surprised?? No, not at all, although I hadn't bargained for such a dramatic outcome!! I've found it easy to fall pregnant over the last 10yrs, 8 pregnancies to date but holding onto a baby in utero is another matter. Our first pregnancy was much dreamed about, I was more than ready, having looked after so many other babies, it was time I had my own!! Norland nanny of 18yrs and children's nurse, bring on the children...and lots of them!!
The relatives had been told and I was well on my way!! Bump was showing nicely, scans were all good and then....a routine appointment with my lovely midwife Liz, left me in disbelief...."I can't find a heartbeat Ali...." I was adamant I had felt baby moving around, felt sure this couldn't happen to me....I had "obeyed" all the rules and been careful, but the afternoon visit after litres of
water and a brisk walk, as suggested, still found no heartbeat. My husband was chairing an important meeting up North, a good 4.5hrs away. He will never know to this day, how he got home so quickly to take me to the hospital for our final scan of our little one. The silence in the room as the sonographer checked all over my tummy and clearly took measurements, was
deafening. I waited for him to say it was all okay.... it was the shaking of my husband's head and tears in his eyes that told me what I feared. I'm not sure I realised I was screaming until the medical team disappeared and my husband & I were squeezed together. The harsh reality of losing something you never got to hold and nurture for years to come still hurts some days despite being a person who feels "things happen for a reason...." I am not sure why this had
happened but the path forward is very different to that I had imagined had I of gone full term.
There are no reasons or answers as to why this happened to us but I am forever grateful we were lucky enough to have had the opportunity, if only for 4 months.
The next day was spent learning about and understanding what would happen when I was admitted to hospital the following day. Despite being a nurse, I am useless being a patient, I felt sick as we took the lift up to the ward, my first question, as we sat down was whether we could
resuscitate the baby!! Don't judge me, it was so illogical of course, but at the time I honestly just wanted this baby to survive. I'd spent weeks growing it after all!!!!
I went through labour; I was sick, I was pained, I had a drug reaction to morphine and felt awful, I'm sure I was in shock, still wanting to deliver and pretend it was all okay but it wasn't. Around 4pm I delivered, and our tiny baby left my body. Not the best first birth story but I was honoured to have been our "baby 1’s" Mummy.
My next pregnancy ended with a happier ending thank goodness!! A c-section after 5 days of having pre-eclampsia, was not a surprise. It was a hectic 5 days but we got through and our beautiful first born living baby was delivered safely, despite my husband and anaesthetist discussing specialised engineered medical equipment as they lifted our boy from me!!!! Thank goodness for my amazing midwife Ru!! I was so in awe of the medical team making the delivery
so incredibly special for my husband and I. Not finding out the sex of our baby was the best move for us all!! It was a wonderful surprise to everyone in the room, we didn't care, we just wanted a healthy baby to start our family and we did!!
My second live birth was supposed to be a VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section) I had lost 5.5 stone of weight through training and eating well, heck, I even climbed Snowdon and ran (slowly...more like a crawl!!) a half marathon too!! I was fit and felt amazing throughout the pregnancy which was without complications.The intention was to have a Foley catheter to enlarge my cervix for the baby to slip out literally just to catch the baby whilst I sneezed.....well, that was load of codswallop!!!
The catheter went in, my waters were broken, we waited, and waited and waited!!!! After nearly 24hrs of active labour still no sign of baby but more importantly, not much movement either!! Panic set in, thank goodness for my super midwife Lauren, who took control!! She was a student midwife when I had my first son and was utterly amazing all those years ago, I was so relieved
to see her, she knew my history and was right on it. I was taken to theatre, still no heartbeat, the lighting had also failed in theatre that morning too!! I couldn't plan this honestly!!! The epidural was not taking and after the third attempt to site it and even more panic, the surgeon shouted
at the team to knock me out quickly in order to hopefully deliver a live baby. Less than a minute later of me being put under general anaesthetic, our second son came into the world!! 36hrs from start to finish!!!!
The first I knew of his birth was when I woke myself up with a rather loud snore and a midwife pinching my neck a little. I saw my husband holding a wrapped bundle with a hat, he looked thoroughly drained and an emotional wreck. My first thought was, was this baby alive or not. It felt the longest 5 seconds of my life, thankfully he let me hold my little (nearly 9lb) healthy
baby. I popped him onto my skin and let him suckle which is when my husband told me he was "really sorry, he had already had to have formula because I was sleeping!!!" I thought it odd he had told me but looking at the time of birth and the clock, I'd been out of it for close to 5hrs!!! I thought nothing of it. My gorgeous 4yr old was allowed to come and see me in HDU (high dependency unit) but no one else. I was keen to be transferred to the ward, I questioned my husband's tone he took with my parents telling them they MUST come once I'd been transferred. I later learned the harrowing truth he had kept from me just so I could enjoy my baby without worrying.
When my parents had left, he handed me his phone and told me to look at our sons first pictures. I coo-ed over them whilst he cuddled our son, I looked at the pictures in reverse....and then, there it was, a picture of me intubated with him holding our son near to me so our little one would have a picture of him with his Mummy if I didn't make it through. I had not realised I'd had a severe drug reaction after delivering my baby boy, it left the medical team perplexed and struggling to know what to do with me. I'd lost a large amount of blood, my blood pressure was soaring and my uterus had become ‘sludgy' (not sure this is a correct medical term but it's a good visual!!) They assumed it was pre-eclampsia so treated me accordingly, but this spiralled out of control, after many hours of testing different things, I started to come around, stats were normalising and all was, thank goodness, fine!! This would account for my husband's ghostly look when I awoke!!
The road to recovery wasn't as easy as I had thought, I struggled with mobility but throughout it all I remained ever so grateful to the team who cared for us, their aim to help us finish our journey from this pregnancy was a success. We were offered support if we needed it, the outcome could have resulted in PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) but thankfully didn't. We supported each other and spoke of the situation over and over, amazed we were BOTH here.
I tell this story not to scare anyone or look for sympathy, I consider myself exceedingly lucky with my lot in life. I tell it because if you've had a similar journey and are struggling with it, I'd love to hear from you. Research shows, being able to relate to someone’s journey has found to have massive health benefits.
I could have been negative about the decisions made for me during labour, I could have shouted about what should have or could have been done prior to the theatre visit but I'm genuinely grateful for my life and it’s no-ones fault. It is, quite simply just one of those things and I choose to be positive about it, after-all, it's my story.
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