Wahmtastic

SNOW, FALSE LABOUR & DISTRESS!

I remember the due date (15th September I think) for Charli to be born - of all the things that would happen in Melbourne's odd weather in September was for it to snow! In fact I remember DH and I trodding down to the local oval to throw snowballs. To our glee cameras were there and we ended up on the Channel 7 news that night! That was the first day I felt any twinges at all. I am confident that my baby should have been born either that day, or the next. But add 11 days of hell to that before I was to meet my dearest Charli.

I had suffered a long and agonising pregnancy. After all the normal pregnancy morning sickness symptoms finally subsided, I then proceeded to catch a series of chest infections that I never completely shook. This resulted in much time off my new job at a new primary school (my dream job in fact of Learning Technologies teacher!) and a very difficult end to pregnancy. By the end I was taking my nebuliser medication for asthma up to 4 times a day - and even with that I could barely breath. I was truly ready to meet my bubs by the due date - but that was not to be!

Silly me - myself and the midwife look back now and think why did I? Why did I take that nebuliser medication so frequently. Every contraction that made me breath worse so my asthma flared, I ended up taking my nebuliser to calm it down. It also calmed down any twinges I had. About a week later my pains had slowly increased from every now and then to a regular pattern. That night I thought that was it. The pains would come just as they described for contractions. So we packed up and headed off to the hospital, just to be on the safe side. That night I was put on the monitor and it clearly showed I was in labour. 'Go home and lets just wait a bit longer' they said - as they were having a busy night. You could be in false labour - the pains felt anything but!! And I didn't understand why the monitor clearly showed I was having strong contractions. They did die down though after a while, which is why they sent me home to wait for it to set in again.

Over the next few days, and continuing to take my nebuliser mixture, I barely slept. By the 6th day I had enough. I went to my appointment and said I can't bear this anymore. I was in pain on and off all day, and I wasn't sleeping - I was a mess! They booked my induction for the next day. They gave me the choice of waiting till the next Monday; in hindsite my choice of the next day was wise - I may not have met my beautiful Charli.

So at 7am on the Thursday morning I fronted ready for my induction. I met with my Mum and DH - both were to be my birth support and take turns being with me. At about 9 am I was taken to the largest birthing room where I readied to birth my baby. I had a fabulous birth plan typed up beautiful and was ready to follow it - including use of a birthing ball and a water birth. It still brings a tear to my eye that I couldn't fulfill those wishes. Anyway, at about 9.30 the doctor came in and broke my waters and inserted the synctotin (I think its called) for induction. A trickle of water came out when the waters were broken - I thought this unusual at the time as I had always heard about big gushes of water - now I understand why! I had already started to dilate before I was induced and my plug had lodged free earlier that week. 30 minutes into the contractions, which came on fast, I was in good shape - the nurses were impressed with how well I was doing and coping - I was actually quite relaxed and spent my contractions imagining beach scenes - my favourite place to be! I thought this was going to be fine! I couldn't wait to move into the bath later to relax :)

But then about 1 hour into it all a nurse put the monitor on the baby and the heartrate suddenly with every contraction was dropping. Finally after about 10 minutes when it was dropping from the normal 150 bpm to about 30-40 bpm, they inserted another monitor on the babies head, took me to the bed to lie down (which I didn't like - I wanted an active birth!) and said she'll be back in a moment with the dr. Within a few minutes the red button was pressed, all action took forth and I had a doctor shoving sign papers for a caeserean - I hadn't read anything about this in my natural birthing book! In tears reading the line that says 'do you understand a risk of a caeserean can be death' and saying 'huh' 'what do you mean i could die' and then realising this was my only option - I signed the papers. DH and I were flooded with tears. What was happening to my baby. All I knew was that it was suddenly a full blown emergency situation -with a room full of physicians and nurses all working to take me to theatre. I was literally run to theatre - I remember going up the escalator and some lovely male nurse calming me down and assuring everything would be alright.

I was prepped really quickly - the kind nurse held my hand and asked me to breath through my contractions as they inserted the needles to numb my body - it was actually quite pain-free - probably helped I was already having contractions so one pain just felt like another! I remained amazingly calm in this whole situation. Suddenly looking up at the middle light I realised they were already cutting me open. I had no idea what was happening - just that there was a kind nurse reassuring me by my side holding my hand, and my DH crying watching what was going on - and the emergency team preparing whatever they needed to for the baby. Next I remember asking what was happening and I could tell by DH's emotions and tears that the baby was born - but I thought to myself 'isn't a newborn supposed to cry'. I cried out 'why isn't the baby crying why isn't the baby crying - is she born yet?' After about 3 or 4 minutes I heard the first cry and with that relief. My baby had been born: 'Is it a Charlotte' I asked (meaning is it a girl - as we had already picked out her name).

She had to have suction to clear out her lungs and apparently she was blue when she came out, but they managed to clear her and while she had a score of 4 I think it was when she was born, after the 5 (or was it 10) minutes she scored finally a 9. They tried to rescue her cord blood as I had agreed to save it for someone who needed it - and the cord blood centre was there - but apparently there was none. It was just a shrivelled empty vessel. My Charlotte was bought to my arms - I honestly didn't know how to respond - I was a mother. How could this be - and she was safe. This is our daughter.

My recovery from the caeserean was perfect. Charlotte rather than losing her birth weight as they are supposed to - only gained it. She was 53cm tall and about 3.3 kg heavy. She was a skinny little thing. Proportionally, she was definately taller than she was heavier.

On day 2 after not latching or feeding properly, she spend the entire night screaming - it was more like screeching - nothing I could do would calm her. The kind night nurses took her to try and calm her, along with some expressed colustrum and tried to settle her. Next thing I knew it was morning and my midwife came and told me that she had been sent to special care nursery overnight for dehydration. Another blow to my perfect plan :( Now I couldn't even hold my baby. She spent 3 days in there while my milk was expressed to come in quicker, and she was fed a combination of breast milk and formula to help her rehydrate. After the 3 days she was a perfect image of a healthy baby. We were all sent home on day 5.

Upon meeting with my midwife for the second pregnancy, I relived all that had happened with Charlotte's birth and together we established with the midwife that perhaps my baby should have been born earlier, but that my asthma meds were preventing it. Apparently they give such medication to stop premature labour. Silly me was taking the meds during contractions - which of course stopped them as it was supposed to - although in my case that was a bad decision. So many things now I consider indicate that Charli was definately 'overcooked':

* I was in 'false' 'real' labour for 8 days with severe contractions
* She was in major distress by the time she was born (the cord had presented which meant it was below her head in the birth canal and restricted oxygen flow at each contraction)
* My waters were just a trickle (goodness knows how she lived with no amno. fluid)
* My cord blood was shrivelled and dry
* She was dehydrated when born
* She was desparately skinny when born and only gained weight

All this could have been prevented if I had only known about my asthma meds -then I might have had the normal water birth I so longed for, and still do.

She now suffers most likely from Aspergers. I honestly wonder if this was caused by her distress during her birth experience. I wonder what restriction of oxygen would do to a baby's brain function. She's actually a beautiful healthy girl now, but with some odd behaviours and lack of social skills - she is really smart. But who knows - I will never! But atleast I can be thankful that I have a beautiful girl to love and hold - she's now 3!

Thanks for reading my story!

Hi, sounds like yr pregnancy wasnt properly managed from a medical perspective...perhaps yr doctor should have advised you about the medication you were taking for asthma...perhaps you should have been induced before the due date if you were having problems managing yr asthma....thank goodness you now have charlotte....and poppy samx Reading yr story made me remember my births makes me go all goosebumpy....

kathryn
thanks for telling your story. i can only imagine what it was like, and I guess writing and reliving it all again. I am so sure you are so thankful for your gorgeous Charli. Its always in hindsight we see these things (Oh.. I sure know this)

you may always wonder... 'what if" and "if only"

You are an amazing woman, and thanks again for sharing

elizabeth