My little boy was born in December and suffered hypoxia at birth - spent 3 weeks in SCBU and we were told at the time that he was likely to have some degree of CP. Since coming home he has been doing well generally but I had started to notice that he wasn't moving in the same way as other babies - I brought forward our 6 month hospital check up but the registrar we saw didn't seem frankly to know much about what she was talking about although did refer us to physio at my insistence. Anyway as it was taking ages to get hospital physio appointment and I was getting increasingly concerned we went to see a private paediatric physio today, and he confirmed that in his opinion he does have CP, affecting all four limbs although much worse in arms than legs. Said it was good that we had come in so early so could get therapy started v. young.
So anyway I feel a bit weird now - there have been so many tears since he was born but now our fears have been confirmed (albeit I know not a formal diagnosis) I almost feel relieved that I now know the worst and can focus on what we can do to help him. I am really annoyed at the hands off approach of the hospital given the results of his MRI, I would have thought they would check him more often and get him on physio asap - if it wasn't for me pushing nothing would have happened for another 2 months.
The worst thing is the guilt I feel which will be with me for the rest of my life - I feel it was me who caused it as chose to go for a home birth. My pregnancy was fine and home births are really promoted in our area and I really thought it would be the best way for him to enter the world. We only live 5 mins from the hospital anyway so I thought it would be no problem if we needed to transfer. The labour seemed to go fine as far as I know, according to the midwives attending it was a textbook labour, but the pushing stage did take quite a while and at some point he managed to tangle himself up in the cord and swallow a lot of meconium. So now of course I can't stop wondering if things would have been different had we been in hospital and thinking how stupid I was to have this idealistic image of the perfect natural birth. I feel so isolated from everyone I know as well with their babies - the moment of Harry's birth was just like stepping suddenly into a nightmare, the memory of it haunts me all the time and I can't bear it when I hear other people's birth announcements as it just reminds me of that moment and makes me feel sick thinking about what might have been.
Anyway sorry this has gone on so long, I just wanted to reach out to some people who might understand. I do love him so much and and so proud of him, he tries so hard to do everything and I hope we can make his life happy.
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50 replies
badkitty · 24/04/2009 18:41
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sarah293 ·
25/04/2009 07:51
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26/04/2009 07:32
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