This isn't intended to frighten as I know my experience is very uncommon - but having read as much as I could find the outcome we're going through was way outside my expectation.
In summary, I'm just recovering from swine flu with possible pneumonia and I've lost my baby at 36 weeks.
DH and I made a considered decision for me not to be immunised with the pandemrix vaccine. In the week before Christmas we'd started to change our minds, but were intending to ask for cevlapan (which wouldn't have been available at our GPs till next week), although between the weather and Christmas we hadn't got far on organising things.
On the 28th I felt as though I had a cold. I started coughing ("unproductive" as its since been termed) and had a bit of a runny nose, but nothing too drastic. The next couple of days saw not much change although I felt very tired. Then early morning on the 31st I had started vomiting, and kept it up on and off for a few hours. I had a little diarrhoea but not much. Put it down to something I ate and went to bed (when our LO was alive and kicking my abused muscles). I got some sleep in the afternoon and woke up early evening feeling much better. However, around 9:30 that evening I had a real attack of shivers/chills/shakes, the V&D returned and I started running a bit of a temperature. DH called the flu pandemic line and, although they weren't convinced it was swine flu they prescribed Relenza and told us to call the out of hours GP.
The GP was concerned that I was dehydrated to the point that I needed IV fluids, and was concerned that my pulse was very high (150) and BP very low and called an ambulance. I arrived in hospital about 2am New Years Day and got started on IV fluids. However, when a MW came to check the heartbeat she was unable to find one, and a scan confirmed that our baby had died.
On top of trying to assimilate our loss, I was still not out of the woods. The evening of New Years Day I had another episode of shivers and shakes, with basic stats far enough outside the normal range that, technically, I needed resuscitating. Saturday passed a little more calmly and we got through the night without any further incidents.
As I was then considered medically stable the obs and gynae team were keen to induce me, as they were concerned that if our LO had died of an infection then there was a significant risk to me until she was delivered. Grace Mary was stillborn on Monday morning.
We don't know exactly why she died and have decided against a post mortem. Possibilities include the influenza virus passed to her, the pneumonia (or some other infection) passed to her, she had some underlying condition not identified during standard ante-natal care, when my blood pressure cratered she was unable to tolerate the stress, and that she was corded 3 times very tightly. Most likely it was some combination of these things.
I do know that we were extremely unlucky and that most women that contract swine flu, pregnant or otherwise, will come through with no problems. However, nothing I or DH had read gave us any indication that this outcome for our baby was even possible and I wanted to let other women know what could happen in the worst case. If we had known I don't know whether it would have changed our decision re. vaccination - I suspect it might.
I'm sorry this is more of a brain dump than a coherent story, but we're still just trying to process what's happened. I doubt I'll be on much for a while, so if I don't reply please don't be offended.