After I'd spent 7 weeks languishing on the antenatal ward, Theo decided on a slightly dramatic entrance on 11th Dec at 33wks, weighing a rather healthy 4lbs9, and completely wrecking the packaging on his way out.
Here is the story. Sorry its a bit long.
I wake up a 11pm ish, thinking I could maybe feel blood, which I was expecting at some point (placenta previa percreta). So I stupidly stand up and the blood starts pouring out, bouncing off the floor and splashing up the cupboard two feet away. I shout for help and the mw runs over, tells me to lie down, and starts pulling the bed out. Later she tells the doctor that there was 1/2 pint of blood on the floor already. They wheel me off to the delivery unit and there are dozens of people running to the operating theatre with me. I'm on the table within 3 minutes!
They put the baby monitor on, so I can hear that he is ok. Other people are stabbing me with needles, 3 canulas, a drip, and a catheter, shaving me, painting me with pink dye (what is that for?) and they stick an oxygen mask on. I am looking at the clock and wondering, in a surreal, detached kind of way, whether they'll get him out before midnight or not. Then my lovely lovely consultant arrives from his home and I breathe a sigh of relief and know he'll do a good job of the surgery.
Someone says "whoops, we forgot the renatadin" and takes my mask off and tries to pour some foul antacid medicine into my mouth, mostly getting it down the side of my face. Wierd comedy moment. Then the mask is back on and the anaesthetist is pressing on my windpipe and telling me to keep my eyes open as long as I can.
Thats the first 20 minutes of it. I was unconcious for the next 12 hours. They called dh in and he arrived shortly after Theo, who was born at 11:52 and taken off to NICU. Dh couldn't hold him as he was on a ventilator but could put his arms around him in the incubator. He'd been warned to expect a long operation but after an hour or so he phoned down to ask how I was doing and was told they were just finishing up. More sighs of relief.
The placenta had grown through the tissue of my cervix and also detached at the top, where my womb was so thin it had just bled through into my abdomen. So they did a hysterectomy and gave me a 10 pint blood transfusion, plus some of my own blood that they gave back to me. (the NHS does recycle after all!).
I woke up the next day in intensive care, spent the next day with an oxygen mask on and a drip running into a large canula in my neck - nice. I have a vertical scar running up two inches past my belly button, held together with 30 staples that made me look like Frankenstein's monster. I've had 2 csections before but this one hurt!
I finally got to see Theo 2 days after he was born, and to cuddle him the day after that.
I came home on the 19th and he came home on the 24th Dec, which was the best Christmas present ever! He is just completely lovely.
(the thread title is a quote from dh's university days ...)