Saturday, December 22, 2007

Aahhh, so how did it all begin?

Hello All,
I will start from the beginning, well almost the beginning. I was due to arrive into my Mummy and Daddy's lives on the 11th of March 2008, but had to be delivered by c-section on the 5th of December 2006, some 14 weeks early. Needless to say, my parents were not ready!

Drama started in early november when my mum went to her normal midwife appointment. Nana Joan was here to visit from australia so also went along so that she could hear my heartbeat. At the appointment Mummy's blood pressure was taken and found to be 190/130 - which is extremely high. Mummy was sent to the hospital for some tests and Nana Joan went home to meet a friend, neither of them thought that it would be much more than a couple of hours at the hospital. They were both wrong. Mummy spent the next 6 days in hospital while the doctors got her blood pressure under control with medication. One good thing about the stay was that she got to hear my heartbeat everyday, and got to have a scan to see how I was getting on. Mummy didn't enjoy her time in hospital ( as she got very bored ), but I loved it! I became very active and loved to play hide and seek with the nurses trying to find my heartbeat!

During the stay in hospital, the doctors had told mummy and daddy that it would be wise for mummy to finish work when she was 32 weeks pregnant and expect to have me delivered ( probably by c-section ) at about 36 or 37 weeks. This meant that I was now due in Feb. Daddy was a bit disappointed. He wanted a march baby as it filled a nice birthday hole on the calendar, but he soon got over it and told mummy they could always try again for a march baby!

Two weeks after being discharged ( 28th November 2006 ) Mummy went back to see a specialist at the hospital to check that her blood pressure was still under control. The night before daddy had suggested that mummy should pack a bag for the hospital, because if she did, then she wouldn't need to use it. Mummy laughed at first, but figured anything was worth a shot as she certainly didn't want to stay in hospital again.

At the appointment, it was found that Mummy's blood pressure was high again. Not as high as it had been, but high enough to make the specialist be a bit worried. She decided to admit Mummy to hospital for a couple of days to get it under control again. Good thing Mummy had packed that bag after all! Mummy even ended up in the same room with the same bed, how strange!

The next day mummy went down for a growth scan to see how much I had grown in the 2 weeks since the last scan. After the scan, a specialist and doctor came to talk to mummy and said that I had not grown as much as they would have liked, there was not enough fluid around me and the placental flow was not as strong as it should be. All of this meant that I was likely to have to be delivered in the next few weeks, most likely at 28 weeks which would be just before christmas. Mummy was very surprised, and then she had to tell daddy. I think he was even more surprised. They had just got used to the idea that I would be here in Feb rather than march! They also had to tell the family......

Mummy had another scan the next day ( friday the 30th) and that turned out to look a lot better than the one before, however the doctors didn't change the current plan. I continued to have my little kicking parties and cause trouble for the midwives who had to do heartbeat traces on me 3 times a day. They knew I was there as I kept kicking the speaker, but I wouldn't let them get my heartbeat for very long. They started to agree with mummy that they thought I was a boy ( Daddy was convinced I was a girl but he was wrong ). With me running away from the monitor it also meant that often the heartbeat traces that they midwives had to do took more than an hour, which made mummy very tired.

Another scan was done on Monday (2nd of dec) and unfortunately that one wasn't much better than the one on the thursday so the specialist talked to mummy and daddy and told them that I was likely to be here in about a weeks time! Aren't I just full of surprises? The specialist also said that he would do another scan the next day and that he wanted to be there for it. So on the Tuesday the specialist, mummy and daddy all went to another scan of me. This scan wasn't very good at all, in fact some of the placental flow was going backwards. The specialist decided that they would be wise to schedule a c-section to have me delivered on the thursday, 6th of Dec! Wow! At least mummy and daddy knew when they would be meeting me..... or so they thought!

Late that tuesday night all of the midwives had a hard time finding my heartbeat so that they could do a trace, but eventually they locked onto it about midnight. After about an hour and a half of being on the machine the midwife decided (after comparing that trace to previous ones) that I wasn't particularly happy and to send mummy down to the delivery suite to have more monitoring and to be assessed by the registrar on duty. Mummy was a bit confused. The registrar looked at the traces and started another one and decided that I was to be born today (wednesday the 5th) but they would wait until all the dr's had their meeting and planning session at 8am to decide what time to do a c-section to take me out. It was about 2:30am by now, so mummy decided to let daddy sleep for a while longer before waking him up with the news of my impending arrival. At 6am, she woke him up and told him the news and asked him to come in for 8am when the dr's would decide when the c-section would be. At about 10am Mummy and Daddy were taken into theatre for the operation. They were very lucky that their lovely midwife happened to be working at the hospital's delivery suite that day and that she got to be in the theatre with them. This was very reassuring for mummy and daddy. They had a hard time putting lines into mummys veins ( and she has the bruises to prove it ) but eventually they got some in. The anethestist also tried several times to get the epidural into mummy's spine. A specialist tried too, but they kept hitting bone, so they eventually decided to put mummy under a general anesthetic so that they could deliver me. This meant that daddy had to wait out in the waiting room ( it wouldn't be nice to see mummy with tubes down her throat etc).

TA-DA!! I was born at 11.35am on the 5th of december 2007. I was assessed as being in good health and taken to the neo-natal unit. Daddy was told that I was a boy and got to follow me as I was taken up to the neo-natal unit.

And here I sit, well lie, in my incubator.

Apparently when mummy woke up from her anesthetic, she didn't even realise that she had had me! Silly mummy. But she was told all about me by the nurses and then came to see me on her way to the ward.

So that is the story on how I got here. A bit exciting huh?

No comments: