November 2012 - silence used to be golden. Now it is worrying

[Passmethecrisps]

Just so we all feel at home

Birth story time. I had a tiny bit of bright red blood when I went to the loo Monday lunchtime so, having had two abruptions before, I went straight to the hospital. When they scanned me they found a previously undiagnosed anterior placenta praevia and furthermore that baby was breech and kicking away at the placenta! The bleeding continued so they needed to section me before the placenta completely abrupted. My DH was away on business in London and couldn't get a flight back until Tuesday morning so my MIL came into the theatre with me. There was a frantic moment when they couldn't find the baby's heartbeat but it turned out to have dropped to 100 so they were picking it up but thought it was my heartbeat. The section was quick and I've never been so happy to hear a baby cry in my life. He was 4 lb 14 oz which is a good weight for 35 weeks (25th percentile) but he seems so tiny, a pure wee dote as they say here in Northern Ireland. Because he was five weeks early he is very sleepy and having trouble regulating his temperature which is causing a lot of problems with feeding. He has had donor breastmilk to keep him going until I can express milk for him. I managed to get a mighty 5ml of colostrum this morning which he took eagerly from a syringe so he is hungry, he just doesn't have the energy to latch on. I'm going to give him another try at feeding then pop him into the sling for some skin-to-skin. It's unfortunate that what he needs most is the skin-to-skin but he can't have it too much because he needs to be kept all bundled up in blankets.

Wow stunt what an incredible story. You must have been so scared. How come the placenta praevia went undiagnosed? I thought they could see that on scans?

Phew, anyway, what a relief it is all going so well. It is great that donor bm is available. I'm sure your milk will come in soon - is there anything they can give you to help it along? Will you be able to get some packs of donor milk to keep you going in the meantime? Why can't you do proper skin to skin under hospital duvet or your clothes? I suppose it may not be practical.

And you? Are you feeling OK?

Stunt when f was born, her temp dropped to 34 precisely because they insisted on bundling her up. if you feel up to skin to skin, then go for it - as long as he and you keep wrapped, that's surely better?

I have no idea how they missed the placenta praevia as I must have had about nine scans.

He's feeding now so I'm going to put him in for skin-to-skin once he's finished. It's quite cold here. I need a big duvet or blanket for us to snuggle under but there's only a single sheet on my bed. I was freezing all last night.

It was okay Gwen because I knew what was happening and what to say to the midwives and doctors to ensure they took it seriously. I got fobbed off with J when I had bleeding at 40+6 so I wasn't going to leave without a scan this time.

So now I have DS4 bundled under my shirt with a fleece blanket over us and he twitching in there like a puppy dreaming. So cute. Let's hope this skin-to-skin thing works and gets his temperature control sorted. I never did it with J because he hated it so I just snuggled him with his clothes on instead.

Rather distressingly it looks like the undiagnosed placenta praevia is the cause of DS4 arriving early. I should have been told not to exercise, instead I was running to the top of the highest hill in the area with a toddler on my back in the sling.

I think you have been very lucky.

Wow Stunt scary stuff but glad all was ok. Hope the wee boy starts feeding well soon and you can go home - I bloody loathed the post natal ward and ached for my own bed.

I'm struggling a bit with the post-natal care and support but I have to give all credit to the NHS for delivering three of my babies by EMCS and saving their lives, and working hard to give me the VBAC that I had with DS2 when they would have preferred me to have an ELCS. We are so lucky in this country.

Congrats stunt!!

Same here, they're overworked and over stretched but I love our nhs. I sent them loopy with my wvbac demands with dc2. They wanted to induce from 38 weeks due to dfm but I said no, they admitted me finally at 39 for monitoring and then induced a few days after term. It still ended in emcs but never once did anyone complain or try to put pressure on me.

Hope you are enjoying lots of squishy newborn cuddles! Does he have a name yet?

I do love your user name wizard

The NHS is precious I hope they don't fuck with it too much, though they seem hell bent on doing so.

Less important but equally precious is the Beeb. Have seen so much anti-Beeb bollocks this week due to the clarkson rubbish.

Amazing story stunt

I agree as well that although not without its faults the nhs is amazing.

Yay it's Friday...

Yay. Cheers pikz.

What's everyone's weekend plans?

Tomorrow the girls have a party and then I'm going shopping either with or without children depending on when DH is back from golf. Then Sunday it's another party and after that I'm taking the kids to my best friends. She's going to cook as a roast so looking forward to that. I will be leaving DH home to decorate. he thinks he's getting a peaceful afternoon. Well it will be quiet I guess

Hooray hooray for Friday!!

We are having a quiet one this weekend. The quiche approved safari park is open again to I think we will take a trip there at some point.

We got our mortgage approved today as dos the buyers for our house so it is all systems go for the house move. It finally seems real!

That's brilliant pass.

Looks like we will be starting our extension soon. Been a long time coming but it could be starting in may/june. We have to cut back on some areas but I think instead of cutting back on the size and style of the extension we are going to have a crap kitchen and reuse a lot of it and our appliances and then get the kitchen done in a yr or 2. Not ideal but at least it's progress.

Hello quiche,

I'm still here, reading but have no energy to post. All good here, O has had her last tooth coming through this week so hopefully within a week or two my grumpy toddler will cheer up. She spent the night with my parents as I had an awful headache, will go and pick her up later today.

I've nearly finished my counselling, I have to say that I finally accepted that life goes on without Leo. Obviously it is still hard but I can see the path I need to follow in life. I feel ok, finally able to breathe.

It's the last 2 months of my OU career, finishing it off at the end of May. I can't wait, it's been a long time coming.

No plans for this weekend apart from seeing friends and having play dates. We will go pony riding tomorrow, she is obsessed!

Lily welcome back, I am glad the counselling has helped.

My LO is obsessed with horses too.

We went to look at a new shopping centre today. It was meh. We went back to our usual one to buy the stuff we needed and the rest of the stuffcan be ordered on Amazon.

Pizza night tonight.

Lovely to see you lily. The end of your ou course is an amazing achievement.

We did get to the safari park for a while before heading into town for lunch and shopping. We then wandered to the village our new house is in to have a wee look again. We were very excited to find that the sign has been changed and that our new village has a lovely little park!

Enjoy pizza gg!!

Pass I love a bit of new house stalking! Hope everything goes smoothly

Me too! While we were walking in the cul de sac a bit of maybe 10 who is to be our new neighbour popped his head out the garden and called a very friendly "hello there!". This is in stark contrast to where I currently live where a man shouted to a 6mo p "what the fuck are you looking at?". Most people are very friendly but I won't be sorry to move on

Halloooooooooooooo... anybody out there?

Helloooooooooooo.

(yes)