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I've had my baby -but he's very poorly! (LONG post!)
Morning all,
I thought I'd fill you in on what's been going on in the last week. Last Monday, the 2nd January, I gave birth a little boy. He was 4 weeks early, I wasn't due until the 27th January, and he was born by emergency caesarean.
On Sunday night I was at my husband's works staff party, he's a chef and it was in his restaurant. About halfway through the main I started to feel very uncomfortable, but as I don't usually eat much at night and had eaten quite a bit, put it down to this. Then I felt like I was having period pains, so thought it was braxton hicks and they would go. We left the party about 11 and I went to bed. I was still having these cramps at 1am, and they were getting stronger and more regular, so I phoned the hospital who told me to come in. We woke my toddler and made our way to the hospital, me driving as hubby had been drinking.
Upon arrival we were seen straight away and although I was contracting every 2 minutes, my cerivx wasn't open. They then checked the baby but couldn't find a heartbeat. Eventually they did but after monitoring him for a short while they noticed his heartbeat was dipping so the doctor advised an emergency c-section, in the next 10 minutes!! A rushed phone call to my best friend to come look after my toddler and hubby was put into scrubs. 4.29am, 2 hours after arriving at Hospital, my little boy was born, not breathing and with an APGAR score of 0. They resuscitated him and rushed him to SCBU.
I didn't get to see him until 6pm Monday evening, when he was 14 hours old. And although the doctors were trying to give us information they knew very little about what was wrong with him. Apart from being deprived oxygen at birth, he had jaundice, low blood platelets, an enlarged liver and spleen, not breathing for himself and was generally very poorly. They immediately ventilated him and put him on a cold mattress to reduce his temperature to 33 degrees, thought to help prevent any further damage.
Since then we have had a very worrying few days but he has come on leaps and bounds but is still very poorly.It turns out he has CMV, a virus which I probably caught in pregnancy and passed on. Approx. half the population are carriers of this virus and it causes no problems in most people, but is very dangerous in unborn or newborn babies. We do not know how much damage having this virus has caused and what it means for the future. We also don't know how long he was starved of oxygen for and what implications this means for his brain.
At the moment he is off the ventilator and breathing for himself, his temperature is back to normal, he is responding to our voices and touch, being fed my milk and has improved enormously over the last two days. He will have an MRI scan next week and is being put on some anti-viral drugs.
I don't want to scare anyone but just wanted to share my story with you all. Hope everyone else is well!
I thought I'd fill you in on what's been going on in the last week. Last Monday, the 2nd January, I gave birth a little boy. He was 4 weeks early, I wasn't due until the 27th January, and he was born by emergency caesarean.
On Sunday night I was at my husband's works staff party, he's a chef and it was in his restaurant. About halfway through the main I started to feel very uncomfortable, but as I don't usually eat much at night and had eaten quite a bit, put it down to this. Then I felt like I was having period pains, so thought it was braxton hicks and they would go. We left the party about 11 and I went to bed. I was still having these cramps at 1am, and they were getting stronger and more regular, so I phoned the hospital who told me to come in. We woke my toddler and made our way to the hospital, me driving as hubby had been drinking.
Upon arrival we were seen straight away and although I was contracting every 2 minutes, my cerivx wasn't open. They then checked the baby but couldn't find a heartbeat. Eventually they did but after monitoring him for a short while they noticed his heartbeat was dipping so the doctor advised an emergency c-section, in the next 10 minutes!! A rushed phone call to my best friend to come look after my toddler and hubby was put into scrubs. 4.29am, 2 hours after arriving at Hospital, my little boy was born, not breathing and with an APGAR score of 0. They resuscitated him and rushed him to SCBU.
I didn't get to see him until 6pm Monday evening, when he was 14 hours old. And although the doctors were trying to give us information they knew very little about what was wrong with him. Apart from being deprived oxygen at birth, he had jaundice, low blood platelets, an enlarged liver and spleen, not breathing for himself and was generally very poorly. They immediately ventilated him and put him on a cold mattress to reduce his temperature to 33 degrees, thought to help prevent any further damage.
Since then we have had a very worrying few days but he has come on leaps and bounds but is still very poorly.It turns out he has CMV, a virus which I probably caught in pregnancy and passed on. Approx. half the population are carriers of this virus and it causes no problems in most people, but is very dangerous in unborn or newborn babies. We do not know how much damage having this virus has caused and what it means for the future. We also don't know how long he was starved of oxygen for and what implications this means for his brain.
At the moment he is off the ventilator and breathing for himself, his temperature is back to normal, he is responding to our voices and touch, being fed my milk and has improved enormously over the last two days. He will have an MRI scan next week and is being put on some anti-viral drugs.
I don't want to scare anyone but just wanted to share my story with you all. Hope everyone else is well!
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Replies
Glad he's coming on leaps & bounds. He will be home where he belongs soon!
E x x
Wishing you all the best and hope he continues to get better, will be thinking of you both.
Take Care
Rachel xx
Best wishes to you all x
Does the little chap have a name yet?
MM
39+5
He seems like a little trooper though and wish him a speedy recovery
Plz keep us updated on his progress, thinking of u xxxx
hi, just seen this on the sidebar. congratulations on your little one's arrival. i'm sure he will be well and home soon.
my eldest was very poorly at birth and rushed to special care, on a ventilator ect (due to a genetic condition we didn't know about) all i wanted was someone to tell me everything was gonna be ok, and there would be an end to the 'not knowing'. being off a vent at this stage sounds really good, it seems like he's making great progress. just take one day at a time, try not to worry about the future too much, just look at all the small achievements he makes everyday. also make sure you look after yourself, its a big shock when things don't go as expected and you've got a major operation to recover from too. i hope the MRI gives you good news. you are in my thoughts x
I wish you a very speedy recovery and hope your little fella continues to grow stronger and is home before you know it!
Lots of Love
xxx
Baby Jenson has really improved over the last week and has now moved from intensive care to high dependancy. He is not being helped at all with his breathing, his bp is good and so is his temperature. He had his MRI scan today although we wont get the results until probably Monday now, but an EEG (similar to ECG but for brains) on Wednesday came back as normal activity.
He's still being fed through a feeding tube in his nose but both yesterday and today I've tried breastfeeding him. He's currently being fed 40mls of milk every two hours, so 12 feeds a day. I'm barely keeping up with him so he is having to have half EBM and half formula but he's guzzling away which can only be a good sign. I'm going to keep b/fing every day and once he goes down to feeds every 3/4 hours he'll start having bottles when I'm not there.
He's got another week on the anti-viral drugs but fingers crossed, once he's finished those and providing his feeding becomes established, his temperature remains stable and he develops no other problems, then we might be able to bring him home in the next 10 days!! To say I'm hopeful is an understatement!
The nurses have said he is really feisty and I've noticed myself that he gets quite grumpy, but he can be as feisty as he like, because it shows he's a fighter and that's what he needs to be right now!
I just want to say that the nursery nurses in neonatal have been fantastic, supporting us, diluting information given to us by doctors as much as possible, and caring for the poorly babies amazingly well! They really are angels and I don't think we would have been in this position without their care.
Will keep updating as things happen! Hope all pregnancies and babies are going well! It's very strange to think I should only be 38 weeks pregnant now!
xxx
Sending lots of hugs and I hope he's home with you very soon.
Mrs B xxx