I'm 28+3 with my 5th pregnancy but 2nd healthy baby (touch wood!!!!!!) and have had severe hyperemesis since week 4 (basically 2 days after positive home pregnancy test!).
My antenatal care has been a shambles; my community midwife that booked me was a stand in and when the regular one came back from maternity leave, I had somehow been lost in the system, so all my appointments had been forgotten about and I was constantly chasing people up.
I have high risk pregnancies too, so this is the last thing I need!
When I was 5mths, during the October half term, I found out my partner was cheating with a girl half his age and kicked him out. All good - I don't care. Well, I do, but I was feeling empowered and full of nesting hormones and fixing the house up myself for the baby and my 4yr old.... basically just in the whole "fuck him" kinda headspace and, although suffering badly with sickness, I was getting on with life.
Not heard from him since he left other than a message via his mum to say he wants nothing to do with the baby and I'm on my own...
Anyway, Xmas comes, I've done all I can to make it beautiful in the house for my son, he is super excited, the hyperemesis is bad but seemed to settle to just a few times a day with hardly any nausea in between, my parents come over for Xmas eve and Xmas day - my mother has flu. Boxing Day I started to feel something coming on and then boom... I haven't got out of bed since then. Other than to be rushed to hospital three times, including NYE. My hospital were so shocking the last time that I ripped out my canula at nearly midnight on NYE because I had been there for 16hrs, with just the canula in, covered in wee, sick and poo (all my own!) but no doctor had seen me and no drip or anti sickness or painkillers or antibiotics or ANYTHING had been administered, despite a student nurse butchering both my hands and my arm trying to put the canula in. I was also covered in blood because she fumbled around so much that the cap came off something and blood was shooting out - like a horror movie!
I ended up passing out.
All the months of throwing up and then the coughing from the flu has torn my abdominal muscle wall in 2 places and I'm at risk of a hernia - or the baby's foot coming through it or something equally fucked up!
I've just had enough. I hobbled out of the hospital and drove myself home in floods of tears because I just could see I was in a worse state than when I arrived and now I've lost all faith in that hospital and now don't know what the fuck to do about the birth!
I was going to try and have a VBAC but I'm not even sure my tummy muscles will heal in time and be STRONG ENOUGH in time to withstand labour contractions and pushing. I didn't want to have an elective, partly because I'm on my own with a 4yr old (who has been at my parents, who live next door, since Boxing Day because I couldn't look after him like this) and need to recover as soon as possible, but I know my mum is now eager for me to have a c section and she will be on hand day and night until I can take over. She was with my son too and I had an emergency c section with him, along with the trauma of everything else going wrong during birth and both the baby and I having sepsis - so I guess she is thinking "just" a c section this time is a million times better than before. And having this flu has scared us both into what kind of aftercare I may get if everything goes wrong like it did with my son's birth.
She and I are also in agreement about changing hospitals... where I had my emergency c section, the female surgeon who did it did the MOST incredible job. The best bit about the birth is the fact that people who see my scar comment on how tiny and neat and virtually invisible it is! I want to go back to that hospital and book that surgeon - if that's possible???? Is it????
I just want one part of this pregnancy to go well. Everything so far has been like something from a nightmare or a "what could go wrong" textbook.
Oh and they called me today to say I have strep b something and me and the baby will need to be flooded with antibiotics at the birth anyway...
I don't really have a question, just needed a place to rant. Any advice or experiences similar would be very welcomed. Or just a hand hold.
I'm in such a dark place right now, despite knowing the flu is very slowly clearing, that I have had some seriously dark thoughts and could do with some hope, even if it is someone else's... because all mine is gone now!!!!!!!
X