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The Due in January 2019 Big Birth Announcement Thread!

Hello everyone!

January will be here before we know it, so we thought it was time for the members of the Due in January 2019 Birth Club, to have your own special thread for your birth announcements.

Please use it to tell us all about your labour and birth, and your first moments with your newborn – and we'll come and shower you with congratulations and coo all over your baby pictures. 

Good luck everyone! We can't wait to hear all about your baby's first few moments!

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Replies

    • My Birth story...

    Baby Adam born on 2nd November 2018 at 13:21 weighing 3lb 0oz.

    • So first a little background... this was my 7th pregnancy (6th baby) and I have had 5 caesarean sections already. The plan was always to deliver by planned caesarean at 37 weeks, however from the beginning this was no typical pregnancy. Firstly, Adam was never planned. Due to my own health concerns and age (39) we decided that our youngest child would need to be our last.
    • However, he was determined otherwise and was a lovely surprise for our 1st Wedding anniversary!
    • Due to our previous missed miscarriage, I couldn’t bear to wait for the 12 week scan to find there was no baby again so we booked and early viability scan at 6 weeks. It wasn’t reassuring. Yes there was a baby, but it’s heart rate was only 85bpm and the pregnancy was very low in the uterus... possibly indicating miscarriage or low implantation. The sonographer couldn’t answer my queries... was it near the scar? Could it be a caesarean scar ectopic? So I got my gp to refer me to EPU at the hospital.

      Within 48 hours I was being scanned and they confirmed that it was very close to the scar, although the baby looked healthy and viable. I had to wait to see the consultant but finally at 9 weeks we got the all clear!

      It wasn’t until my gender scan at 15 weeks that the placenta was a topic for concern. They saw a complete placenta previa (totally over the cervix) and noted that baby was small. I then had close follow up at the hospital, as with my history of caesarean section my chances of also developing placenta accreta (where the placenta invades too deeply into the uterus) were very high. I had growth and fetal medicine scans throughout the pregnancy and we were beginning to make a plan for safe delivery.

      My final fetal medicine scan was due for 32 weeks with an appointment with my consultant set for the following week to finalise arrangements for the birth.

      However we never made it that far! Adam had always been a good little mover but after a Sunday roast at the in-laws when I was 30+6 weeks, I realised as I drove home that he had been far too quiet that day... as a midwife I know to live by my own advice so hubby and I promptly made our way up to the hospital for a quick check up. All was well with baby and the monitoring trace they performed, however as I lay on the bed I started getting irregular pain around my scar area. I’ve had my fair share of experience of ligament pains and generalised scar tenderness, but somehow I knew this was different. I discussed it with the registrar and he agreed I should stay in overnight for observation. I made it to the ward just after midnight and hubby went off to get me some bits.

      As I waited, the pain began to intensify into actual contractions. Then I went off to the toilet only to find fresh red bleeding... it was at this point I started to get scared.

      Suddenly I had become the highest risk patient on the whole unit. Further monitoring ensued and I was given my 1st dose of steroids to mature the baby's lungs just in case he came soon (the 2nd was to be given 12 hours later).

      The team discussed the risks of premature labour with me and advised that they wanted to transfer me out to a tertiary unit eho epuld be better equipped to deal with my potential accreta and other complications.

      After a long day of waiting and monitoring (and my doctors arguing with the other hospitals) we were no further ahead so I had to stay put. It was very frustrating and frightening.

      The next day, the on-call consultant came to see me. He agreed that I needed a scan for the baby and an MRI to rule out accreta, but if all was well I could go home! I was shocked and not at all happy. I tried and tried to explain how this pain was not normal and baby's movements were still reduced.... I went for my MRI and happily it showed no signs of accreta. This was a massive relief in principle but I knew there was still a 7-10% chance it was wrong. At this point the tertiary hospitals all decided that they would not accept me as I was not as high risk. It honestly felt like no one was hearing me. Next I had my growth scan. It showed all was fine with baby except I had seriously reduced fluid levels. How could this be?? With placenta previa there was no way my waters could have broken... the next most likely answer was that the placenta wasn’t working properly, but again the consultant on call had other ideas. He felt that it was simply a normal fluctuation that would normalise itself. He wanted me to go home and come back for another scan the following week.
      The difficulty was that he was a junior consultant and while he was confident in quoting all the guidelines at me, he wasn't actually stopping to consider the picture holistically. I didn’t solely fit any single guideline and that needed to be taken into account.

      I decided that it was finally time to exert my staff influence so I arranged for a message to be sent to my consultant at home. Thankfully he agreed that he needed to see me so instructed staff to keep me as an inpatient until he could get there on the Friday.

      So we waited... which went well until the Thursday night when the bleeding picked up as did the pain. I started contracting every 2 mins and although my cervix remained closed we were all worried enough to have me moved around to Delivery Suite. It was a long sleepless night full of painful contractions... not something I had ever planned for!

      So finally Friday morning came and so did our consultant. Frank conversations followed. We agreed there was no straightforward answer. It was clear that the sooner I wasn’t pregnant anymore, the safer I would be. In addition the one thing we all agreed was that this surgery would be risky and definitely should NOT be allowed to happen in the middle of the night or over the weekend when staffing is not optimal... But when was the right time for baby...? I was currently only 31+3 weeks pregnant and ideally baby needed to stay put until 34 weeks. We agreed that the fluid levels were concerning and so a fetal medicine scan was ordered.

      The specialist came to see me. She was happy to do the scan with a detailed assessment of the baby’s blood flow Dopplers including brain and umbilical flows. However she made it very clear that she would never advocate delivering before 32 weeks for reduced fluid levels. 
      But then we went for the scan and she was quiet for a long time. She explained that the Dopplers, growth and anatomy were normal but there was no fluid at all and the baby’s stomach was empty (not good for development). She was thoughtful for a while but then turned and said “Hydie, deliver your baby TODAY".

      She was clearly worried to do a 180 degree turn on her advice and so with the backing of 2 consultants the decision was made, and within the hour I was being led to theatre. Before that though I was scanned once more to “map" the placenta and as a result we agreed I’d have a classical uterine incision to avoid cutting into it, just in case there was an signs of accreta once the operation was underway.
      To say I was scared, would not truly encompass how I felt. There was relief that my concerns had been heard, there was fear in case I’d made the wrong choice (I felt wholly responsible for this decision to deliver prematurely and it weighed very heavily on me), there was the need to keep a brave face for hubby and in front of the staff who were also friends and work colleagues, and a little bit of excitement too.

      The plan was to have a combined spinal and epidural so that I’d be covered by epidural top-ups if the surgery was prolonged for any reason. But here things began to go amiss. The anaesthetist tried for 40 mins to site the spinal but could not so in the end we went ahead with just the epidural. My heart sunk... It was working and well, but I’d had a caesarean under epidural before and it wasn’t as good as the spinal. But I wanted to know my little one was ok and I didn’t want to miss his birth so I took a deep breath and let them start...
      First incision was ok, but quickly it became clear that I didn’t have full coverage and as the consultant worked with the scissors to get through the adhesions, each snip was live... looking back it was horrifying but I kept as calm as I could. Quickly little man was delivered... at 13:21 weighing 3lb 0oz (1.365kg) and he came out crying loudly! It was magical to hear. He was given to the special care staff who worked to stabilise him. I know now he was clearly growth retarded and needed a bit of oxygen, but otherwise he was very healthy!

      Sadly by this point it was all getting too much; I so wanted to be awake to see him but the pain of the operation was becoming an overwhelming agony. In addition to the sharp pain where they were working below the epidural coverage I also began having referred pain shooting up my back because the surgeon had lifted my uterus up out of my body to repair the T shaped incision he had used following the removal of my placenta (which was thankfully straight forward). I just couldn’t take any more so I told the anaesthetist to convert to a general anaesthetic. There were an awkward few moments where he seemed to need convincing and I was becoming desperate. I didn’t want to loose control in front of hubby and start screaming... I didn’t want to let him spend however long with that being the last memory of me while waiting for them to complete the operation. So I gritted my teeth and reassured him all was ok but I needed to go to sleep. I then gave the nod to the anaesthetist. He proceeded to ask the surgeon to stop temporarily while he put me under, but the surgeon said he couldn’t as he was struggling to stabilise the bleeding. At this point I noted the slight panic in his voice and for the first time I was worried that I wouldn’t be ok. As the mask was put over my face I could sense everyone rushing round in a controlled panic and as I drifted off to sleep I could feel the midwife crawling beneath the drapes to insert a special balloon that they needed to use to control the bleeding... All I knew is that I needed to trust my friends to see me through... Adam was still crying in the background and then... nothing.

      I woke some hours later back in my room. Apparently I had stayed in theatre for a further 2 hours while they worked to control the bleeding. I’d needed 2 units of blood and 500mls of my own blood recycled back to me as my total loss was 1.9 litres. They also struggled to recover me from the general anaesthetic and so it was around 5pm before I really became aware of where I was.

      Hubby looked pale and shaken but relieved to see me awake. Not a lot made sense at first, but he had a picture of my tiny baby boy! I just couldn’t rationalise it... how could he be mine? I wanted to see him so bad as he didn’t seem real to me yet, but I was in high dependency care so I couldn’t go anywhere.

      Everyone started to fill in the gaps in my memory and advise me of what had happened. I had a vaginal pack in place as well at the uterine balloon. I needed some very strong pain killers as I was in so much discomfort. Luckily I had not needed a hysterectomy so I’d been sterilized instead. I was swollen and felt battered and bruised like never before!
      They explained how when opening me up, they had found a small opening in my scar and around 200mls of blood in my abdomen, probably from the placenta which was underneath it. Basically I was very close to having a uterine rupture and/or placental abruption, either of which could have been fatal for me and Adam. This was the reason for the pain and bleeding.

      In addition they found that my placenta was particularly vascular (had a very large blood supply) around the area that is usually cut through during a normal caesarean). The surgeon’s decision to map the placenta and make a classical incision avoided an uncontrollable haemorrhage and probably saved my life. It has taken many days to even begin to process how close we came to disaster!

      On the upside, Adam came out in the best possible condition and only needed oxygen for a few hours. He quickly progressed to feeding and has made excellent progress with very few set-backs.

      I got to see him when he was about 11 hours old. They wheeled me round on my bed as I couldn’t move due to the balloon and pack. He was so, so small and there were wires everywhere. He felt like someone else’s baby and it’s taken some work to get over that feeling. Leaving him behind each time, whether to go back to the ward to rest or have medications or being discharged from hospital myself at day 5, has been the cruellest and most heart-breaking thing I've ever had to do. Each separation has felt like a bereavement, just like my miscarriage but repeated daily for weeks. Nothing has ever felt as intrinsically “wrong" as leaving my baby behind to be cared for by someone else...

      As for me, I have made a steady recovery, despite struggling to control my pain at first and still trying to tackle a wound infection- I’m on my 2nd course of antibiotics. I’m healing slowly but surely!

      The placenta was sent away to histology. We got the results back a few days ago- it showed definite signs of insufficiency. This was the final piece I needed to lay to rest the guilt I’ve been feeling about putting Adam through the trauma of prematurity. The placenta was failing and so was my uterus. I carried him for as long as I safely could and I know that the decision to deliver when we did probably saved us both.

      As my consultant agrees... This was a “good catch" and we can all sleep well knowing we made good clinical decisions that day!

    • imageimage 
    • my little miracle boy! Xxxx
  • Congratulations Apricot!! 

    This in an unbelievable birth story. Happy to hear you're both safe as I was on the edge of my seat reading.... by the way, where on earth did you find time to write this? 🤗 Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. X

  • Bit late posting our birth announcement, time has flown with Christmas, new year and having 4 kids. How you ladies with more do it  i don't know.

    Cooper arrived 38+2 on 20th December 2018 17.05 weighing 8lb 11oz.

    The last 2 weeks i was back and forth to hospital with consultant appointments, growth scans and midwife appointments. They were concerned about his as the original growth scan he was on 95th centile ,dropped to 60th then dropped further to 40th at 37 weeks. Cue me being told to go to our maternity unit on a diff town a 20 min drive away. The mw said i would be induced in tje next day or 2. I then sit in a waiting area for 2 hours for a consultant to look at my notes and say oh its fine go home.

    I then questioned it as One consultant was concerned but another not so much, and id been rushed there and sat waiting 2 hours to be told to go back home. I asked to see a diff consultant who was lovely and explained that if you added the 10% margin of error he went back up to the 60th centile. 

    I got told id have another growth scan at 39 weeks, which would be Christmas day and they werent doing scans. Needless to say i was pretty frustrated. The mw on triage came through to inform me that the next available scan would be 2 days before my due date on 30th Dec. She fought for me as she said id already had 3 growth scans and he had dropped and his growth velocity wasn't what it should be and to wait till due was ridiculous.

    Consultant then agreed for me to have a sweep at 38 weeks and book in to be induced that week. Booked sweep with community mw 38+1 and induction for 38+2 .

    Contractions started the same day as the sweep in the evening but then stopped during the night. They started again at school pick up at lunch time 20th Dec, the day after sweep, same day i was booked in to be induced at 9pm. 

    Went in at 4pm as needed pain relief. Midwifesaw to me at 4.30.

    4.40 mw said contractions weren't regular enough to warrant being examined .

    4.45 i feel need to push and in tears with pain, reluctantly mw agrees to examine me

    4.50 mw from delivery comes in, tells me i need bag of fluids as dehydrated, examines me and says yep you're ready to go.

    4.55 get gas and air in delivery,  no time for cannula to be put in or obs to be done

    5pm waters go with a bang during a push,  soaking student midwife and flooding the floor

    5.05 Cooper arrives after 3 big pushes 

    Midwife and student gobsmacked that mau didn't listen to me and didnt want to examine me. Id said it was baby #4 and the previous 2 labours were quick. 

    Was the easiest,  quickest and most relaxed labour and birth. 

  • Just found this thread so figured it was about time I shared my birth story.

    Logan arrived at 8.11pm on 31/12/2018

    This was my second pregnancy. Sadly my first ended in miscarriage. We had been trying this time for about 8 months after stopping the pill. Periods returned after 3 months. My last period was late by 8 days so genuinely was surprised to get a bfp this time. Checked with the strip tests and then confirmed with a clear blue. Dh was away for work when I found out so took a pic and sent it, seemed to take forever for him to get back to me!!!!!

    Anyway, morning sickness was horrendous and lasted until around 16 weeks. Then at 20 weeks I started to swell, especially my hands and feet. Pregnancy was fine apart from that, until 38 weeks. Went for a routine mw appointment and my BP was up plus some protein in urine. So was sent to the mau to be checked over. 

    Bp checked, still high. Given meds and then rechecked, still high. Given different meds, still high. Spoke to doctor, suggested that they might bring me back in a few days for induction. Bp checked again and getting higher, spoke to more senior doctor and clarified that I had had a migraine a few days before and that I had a headache now. Then spoke to consultant who said that I wouldn't be going home and could either opt for a section or be induced.

    We opted for a c section as after exam my cervix wasn't ready so I may have needed to be sectioned anyway. Was told I would need to have magnesium before surgery due to the risk of seizures in myself. Was given this via an infusion and it was horrible, made me feel all sweaty and clammy so I had the midwives fanning me and putting wet towels on me until it was finished. Was taken for a section at 7.30pm. I had a spinal which was absolutely fine. All i felt during the surgery was the sensation of tugging and pulling. When they took the baby out it was weird as they squeezed my ribs to get him out. 

    Curtain was dropped to let me see baby being lifted out and then hubby was able to go over when they weighed the baby and cut the cord. Then I got put back together and then taken through to the labour ward. Had to have another magnesium infusion which wasn't as bad as the first. 
     
    I spent 24 hours in the labour ward and was then moved up to maternity ward. Got home 3 days after baby arrived.


    Baby Logan, born at 8.11pm 31/12/2018 weighing 6lb1 arriving at 38+1 weeks
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