Birth story

This is the story of how Littlebit came into the world, 10 weeks early taking us all by surprise.

It all started mid August 2010. To this point I’d had the perfect pregnancy, no morning sickness – ok so I felt rough for the first 10 weeks but I wasn’t one of those unlucky people who spent their first trimester chained to the toilet bowl. Entered the second trimester and people started telling me I was glowing. Everything was good.

I passed the crucial 24 week date and everything was going swimmingly. Then all of a sudden my BP started raising at my routine community midwife appointments and the next thing I knew I was being rushed to the local hospital as my BP was so high. Typically by the time I got there everything was normal again.

We then went for one of our private scans. The minute the sonographer started the scan I could tell something wasn’t quite right. He eventually told me that my amniotic fluid had decreased, pretty dramatically. He asked me to do a urine sample and sat us in the waiting room where he took my blood pressure. This was all completely above and beyond what we were paying him to do. He wrote a long letter to my community midwife and asked me to see her at the earliest opportunity.

Then came two overnight hospital stays and frequent visits to the Maternity Assessment Unit, extra growth scans and all sorts of urine and blood tests. Littlebits ‘accelerations’ weren’t what they should be, my BP was up and down (even with medication) but my urine tests were all clear. So I figured I’d just be monitored until she decided to arrive. Little did we know.

On attending a growth scan at 30 weeks the sonographer looked grave as she was carrying out the Doppler, this is the test they do to see how well the placenta is working. She asked another member of staff to arrange an appointment with the consultant immediately. Until this point I’d only seen his registrars. He sat us down and told us that our baby would be being delivered TODAY by emergency c-section. That they couldn’t deal with babies that early at this hospital but that they would send me down to labour suite, in a wheelchair (!!! I still felt fine, physically anyway) where they would find a hospital to transfer me to by ambulance. This had suddenly become really serious.

All along we’d just been told, we’ll get you to 34 weeks with medication and then everything will be fine with baby and you. But now, it’s just 30 weeks, the hospital I’m in can’t deal with babies this early and hubby only took the morning off work. This is when the panic set in. The first thing I thought of was that we’d just dropped my company car in at the garage to have some work done and I told hubby to call them and tell them they might have to hang onto it for a bit. Before I even thought of calling the family to tell them what was going on. Both sets of parents were due to go on holiday the next day and my concern was that they would still be able to go on their trips. I don’t think the imminent danger for me and Littlebit even crossed my mind.

10 hours and 2 shift changes later on labour suite we’re told that despite their best efforts throughout the day they just simply can’t find a bed for me and a cot in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). My BP is now life threateningly high and Littlebits ‘accelerations’ are getting worse, so they are going to prepare me for theatre. What? Here? But you said you can’t deal with babies this early here? Unfortunately they don’t have an option, our lives are in their hands. My Mum is called and hubby is given some scrubs. We’re told that Littlebit will be transferred to another hospital shortly after she is delivered. I assume I’ll be going with her.

We go into theatre and while they’re giving me the spinal I start violently shaking. I think it’s just fear at the time but later find out I was going into shock and my system was starting to shut down. Hubby comes in and they start. I have a team of 7 staff (including 2 anaesthetists) and there is a neonatal team of 7 ready for when Littlebit comes out. It is terrifying! Hubby and I just wait, and wait, and wait for what seems like a lifetime but was actually no more than a few minutes. We’d been told not to expect a cry when baby comes out but lo and behold our little fighter takes her first breath and lets out a high pitched squeak. We both have tears rolling down our faces, that’s a good sign surely?

One of the neonatal nurses, quickly brings her to the head of the bed and shows her to us. Me being lower down I only glimpse sight of two tiny, and I mean TINY feet before she’s rushed to the resuscitaire and is quickly whisked away.

I’m stitched up and after a while in the recovery room am taken back to the labour suite. I can hear other mums pushing and the squealing of new babies fresh out of the womb. I want my baby. I feel completely empty.

After an hour or so hubby is allowed to go and see our girl. I send him off with strict instructions to take as many photos as he can. I am so jealous it hurts. But I’m stuck in HDU and not allowed to move. My mum is still around so she keeps me company as I ache to be with my new family. I feel completely left out, but at the same time I am so happy for him as he gets to meet her. Just insanely jealous!

When he returns, with tears in his eyes, he says she’s ok and shows me pictures of this ugly little thing with tubes and wires all over her. I think she’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, I am INSTANTLY in love.

The very first photo of Littlebit

Next to Daddy’s hand – how tiny?

The midwife returns to tell us that Littlebit will be moved in a few hours, 50 miles away to a NICU that has a space. I ask if I’ll be travelling in the same ambulance or separately. They tell me that it’s just her that’s going. The bottom falls out of my world. Not only is she not in my belly any longer, where she should be, but now she’s being taken away, where I won’t be able to see her, let alone touch her. So far, just the thought of her being in the same building as me has got me through not being able to be with her.

Some hours later the transport team bring a ginormous travel incubator through my room. I can’t touch her and can’t get very close to see her. But see this tiny baby wrapped in bubble wrap, with a helmet on her head and a big green tube from her mouth, which I later found out was the CPAP. She looked so small, but again I felt an overwhelming surge of love for this alien looking thing and asked the transport team to look after her for me.

Littlebit in her transport incubator

Hubby followed the ambulance as Littlebit needed him far more than me and I was alone. The midwives were amazing, so kind and reassuring. They brought me updates from the NICU every few hours and would come and chat to me when they had time. I was on 15 minute obs so was never alone for long but those 15 minutes each felt like a small lifetime.

In the early hours of the morning I asked for a breast pump. It had dawned on me that there was something very important I could be doing. After 45 mins on the double pump I had less than 5ml of gorgeous yellow liquor, colostrum, which I knew to be so important to newborns, let alone preemies. I rang for the midwife, who congratulated me enormously and said it would be more than enough and that they would store it until hubby came back to collect it.

The next 3 days this was our way of life. I would look at the many photos I now had of my gorgeous girl – hubby would take more each time he saw her and videos too so I could see the changes, smell the blanket she’d been sleeping on that the NICU had sent back with hubby and pump, and pump and pump! And then hubby would drive it that 50 miles to her. I was ashamed of the small amounts I was expressing but quickly felt better when hubby reassured me that Littlebit was being given 0.5ml of milk every 4 hours. I realised that at this rate she’d have enough for weeks. I felt even better when I was told I had my own freezer compartment of the stuff at the NICU.

On day four of Littlebits life my BP had finally stabilised and I was discharged. We drove the 50 miles, my excitement growing and growing as it slowly dawned on me that I was finally going to meet my baby properly, and maybe even get to hold her. The minute I saw her, in this massive incubator, wired up to loads of machines, splints on her arms, bruises all over I was overwhelmed with happiness, sadness, fear, all sorts of emotions. The nurses had dressed her in this cute little dress as they knew Mummy was coming to meet her. She looked so delicate. And I got to have a cuddle…. the best thing ever! Despite wires and tubes, I could hold my baby to me and tell her I’d never leave her again.

Meeting Mummy for the first time – 4 days old

Related posts:

• No Related Posts