MSE Pregnancy Club XI

fairydawn · 23 May 2009 at 5:23PM

sss congratulations on the birth of leila, and thank you for the birth story. Hope you are all well x.

ticklepenny congratulations on the new arrival Isabella, looking forward to your birth story.

Congratulations greent x.

Happy Birthday SM and Caz :beer:

helen81_2 · 23 May 2009 at 5:23PM

Oh wow births to catch up on??! :T Well done ladies!!

Well,the results are in,Im definatley,no mistaking it, having a BLUE pumpkin!! I saw the goods with my own eyes so I am satisfied now that I can saftely go buy boy clothes

He is gorgeous,saw his little face and all his little features so clearly..and sounds silly but his profile of his face looks just like my DS. I'll be sooo pleased if they look similar!
Im smitten already:D:D

tiamai_d · 23 May 2009 at 5:27PM

sparklygemster wrote: »

not posted on here for a while but...ive had a miscarriage

Well...the doc thought it was implantation bleeding...turns out it wasnt ended up going for a scan to see if everything was ok, and the woman that was seeing to me basically said that ive lost it cos of my weight!!! not the nicest thing to hear, especially as its my 2nd loss. She also accused me of lying, saying that cos i didnt get a test at the doctors that i couldnt have been sure that i was pregnant...FGS how hard is it to tell the difference between a + and a - on a test!!!!!!

Sorry just had to have a rant, not doing very good at mo, and as im starting to come off anti depressants its not the best of times for me

What a load of crap! Women of all sizes have problem free pregnancies and women who are of a normal weight have miscarriages too. She must have a phd in crapology, sadly there are a few of of those going round.

Hope you recover soon and sorry to hear your news.

money_maker_3 · 23 May 2009 at 5:29PM

:grouphug: searching - have a dodgy hug from me on your birthday to make everything all better. I even have some ben and jerrys cookie dough to throw over if you want some

money_maker_3 · 23 May 2009 at 5:29PM

Congrats for definate on team blue helen !!!!!!!!!!!

tiamai_d · 23 May 2009 at 5:30PM

Helen congrats on team blue!!!!

Congrats to Mrs.T, SSS, Greent, tickle and anyone else I have missed. What happened with Elle though? a 31 weeker? is he doing well?

oh, I juts got good news, DH was paid his near-nuff £500 bonus thingy, so new washing machine here I come!

Love it when karma is good to you.

Sami_Bee · 23 May 2009 at 5:30PM

Tissues at the ready

Hi all.. hope everyone is well and congrats on any births I’ve missed. Hugely grateful to Sami who I’ve been txting – hope she’s been keeping you informed. Huge apologies for jumping the queue.. trust me, it wasn’t intentional! Thank you for all the good wishes.

We’ve just nipped home for a few hours (very lucky that the hospital is only ten mins away from our house) to check on the house progress and make some more decisions so the builder and our parents can move forward with the work in our absence. [Have actually typed this msg on Friday night then added a bit this morning and just copied and pasted it for ease now! Typed in Word, hence the lack of smiley faces..]

Well.. where to start?! First things first, Rhys is holding in there. He’s described as ”in intensive care, critically ill / very poorly, but making improvements”. Am sure Sami (or was it my mum?) has told you that the condition I had is called Vasa Praevia. It’s a 1 in 2500 pregnancies thing so I’m sure I’ve had our thread’s share of it! Basically it’s to do with the cord insertion point into the placenta – it should go right into the middle of the placenta but mine stopped about four inches from the placenta, attached to the sac instead with three very thin vessels/arteries (not sure!) running from the end of the cord and into the placenta. It’s been like that since the day the placenta formed. One of those three broke which caused both me and Rhys to have massive bleeds and he had to come out pronto. It could have gone at any time – no specific reason for it going when it did – just “lucky” that I was near/in hospital when it happened. If I hadn’t have been, I might not be here either.

I started bleeding in the night on Sunday, discovered it when I woke up at 4am – felt uncomfortable, thought I just had wind and nearly went straight back to sleep but decided to go for a wee and saw all the blood. Phoned the hospital; they were going to send an ambulance, but as my parents live out in the sticks and we’d have to wait for the ambulance to reach us, we decided it was quicker for Craig to drive me. Got to the hospital and had two hours of trace monitoring which was fine. They kept asking me if I had any pains but I didn’t at all. After about 90mins I started to feel something, best described as “tightenings” but less painful that period pains, but had to keep asking the midwife if what I was feeling was what she was talking about cos it was barely noticeable (she was seeing it all on a monitor though). Then I went to the loo (thought I had trapped wind again) and had a massive bleed whilst in the bathroom. They tried to reattach the trace monitor but couldn’t find his heartbeat and made the decision to get him out straight away. I was whisked to theatre; no time for an epidural so had a general aesthetic. I was fine, but the crucial point is that it took 24 minutes to resuscitate Rhys – they usually call it a day at 30 minutes.

Due to the length of time it took to resus him, it’s thought that he has damage to his brain. He had a brain scan yesterday to give us a better idea of what’s been damaged and we got the results this morning – the doctor said that they’d found abnormalities but they are within the range of what they would expect and there was no mention of it affecting how much care he is given (ie whether to withdraw care, which is what was mentioned on Day 2). The delay also meant that some of his vital functions weren’t working on their own so he was on a ventilator until Thursday evening. So far he’s coping well without the machines breathing for him although he still has one there to help if he needs it. His kidney function didn’t work for several days but now seems to have started on it’s own and he’s now “peeing for England ” (technical term by the consultant!). The levels of the chemicals in his bloods have been up and down so they’re changing his meds all the time and he’s just about settled now, and he’s had five blood transfusions. He just needs to keep on improving for the next few days and there’s talk of a CT scan on Tuesday if he’s up to it.

He’s now being fed my expressed breastmilk – 1.5ml an hour! I was hand expressing to begin with but since last night have been using my TT CTN hand pump (£10 from Asda Baby Event!), and it’s awesome! Recommend it to all – very funny to watch tho, or is that just me being warped?! I had no idea if I’d be able to do it; my boobs felt no different until Day 3 then I woke up feeling like I’d had an elephant sleeping on my chest and went from there..

I’m fine (physically, anyway). Apparently my scar is really neat and they’ve got no worries about my recovery. I’ve got dissolvable stitches on the inside, which came out to finish with beads and clamps on the outside which I’v had cut off last night. I’ve got to go back to see the midwives on Sunday evening for another check-up but I think that’s in place of the midwives coming out to see me at home.

They didn’t discover the VP until hours after the birth when the registrar started an investigation (always done) into why Rhys had got into difficulties, normally they test the cord blood looking for acids but this was a “get placenta out the fridge” job. Craig and my Dad have even seen my placenta and I’ve seen photos of it on the registrar’s phone(!). At some point in the future, I’ve got to sit down with the consultant and discuss the whole delivery and will find out all about it then (in six weeks’ time, I think).

Anyone worried about being an in-patient or having a C-section – don’t! Before all this with Rhys, my worst nightmare was to have to have any medical treatment. You all know I hate needles, but the thought of my skin being cut for the c-section or having a catheter (oh the glamour!) or all the needles just made me a gibbering wreck. Like I was telling Sami, I look like a pin cushion – had to have Anti D, anti-clotting and morphine jabs, plus all sorts of blood tests – but you get over it when you have to (says the world’s biggest wimp!).

Have to say, all the staff have been fantastic. The midwives were all lovely – probably met about 12 different ones over five days of being an in-patient; they work weird timed shifts! The registrar was obviously amazing to make the right decision at the right time and not to just pass off the two hours of monitoring as fine – two hours of okay monitoring and you’re usually allowed home. They had me prep’ed for theatre just in case from about 30 mins in. Only person I’ve (finally!) met that I haven’t liked is my own consultant. He’s got all the bedside manner of a bedpan! He barely speaks and ripped off my bandage rather unceremoniously considering I was still in pain and told him I didn’t want to peal it off (I have an allergy to plasters and I’m not good with sticky tape either); I wanted to soak it off in the bath like the midwives had said I could. All the SCBU nurses are amazing and even the consultant paediatrics are getting nicer. On the Tuesday, we were told by one that we might have to start thinking about “the kindest thing to do” – thankfully, Rhys has been making more improvements since then and the same paediatrician sounded pleased with him on Friday morning and was much nicer in his approach.

I won’t go on much more, I promise.. Just a few bits of advice for everyone..

Enjoy every single day of your pregnancy – I didn’t make the most of mine and now I bitterly regret it. I didn’t take as many bump pictures as I wanted to.. I didn’t take as many heartbeat recordings as I should have.. [OH has just chipped in with I – not sure if he means me or him! – didn’t have as much pregnant sex as I wanted!]. Never ever complain about your bump being big/small/tight, or the hiccups, or the feet shoved in your ribs. I miss my bump so much!

Because of what happened and the VP having been there but me not knowing about it, I swing between wishing he was still inside, but then it’s just blissful ignorance as with the VP it was always going to be a dramatic delivery – if I’d have gone into full blown labour (I was never officially “in labour”), it would have put more strain on the three vessels and could have been an even worse end result.

OH wants to write something for you all from a Daddy’s / partner’s point of view so once I let him have the laptop for more than a minute, I’ll get him to type it and will post it when I can.

And, finally, my own proud parent moment.. Here’s a few pics of our gorgeous little boy:-

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=258420&id=723825074&l=f6ae971bfe

We’re staying in a parent flat at the Neonatal unit for now. Not sure how long we’ll stay but my parents’ house feels too far away from Rhys at the moment and ours still isn’t ready to live in. I might start trying to nip home for an hour or so a day but we’ll see.. In the meantime, I’ll keep txting Sami – Sami, don’t you dare go into labour without passing on my number and lining up someone else to take over from you! (thank you a million, hun! xx)

Love to all xx

pookie5488 · 23 May 2009 at 5:33PM

what a birth story sss, thank goodness you are both doing well!!!

sg- sorry to hear about your loss, what a horrible midwife I would make a complaint if I were you.

Got my triple test results back low risk of downs 1:8318 and afp not elevated indicating low risk of spina bifida. SOOOOO HAPPY!! Can finally start to relax a little bit now.

pookie5488 · 23 May 2009 at 5:43PM

ELLE -sorry I cross posted with you there, Rhys is absolutely gorgeous and doesn't look as small as I had imagined he would be. What a frightening time this must be for the whole family but thank goodness he is starting to make signs of recovery. Please make sure you and dh don't burn yourselves out and please look after yourself as you have just had a major operation. My thoughts and prayers are with you all.

tiamai_d · 23 May 2009 at 5:43PM

Lots and lots of 'get strong soon' vibes to Rhys!!!

Elle, it's amazing how quickly they get better.

MSE Pregnancy Club XI

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