Hi ladies! I hope you are all well. I wanted to give an update. Heads up, this post contains my birth story (including complications) and it's quite long. But has a happy ending 😊
On 12th September when I was 35 weeks and 4 days pregnant I went to the toilet in the morning and felt leakage which didn't feel like pee. I stood up from the toilet and liquid started gushing down my legs - my waters had well and truly broken. I called up the hospital and was asked to come in. I was admitted to be monitored to see if I go into labour and was also given antibiotics to prevent infection. On that day, I had absolutely no pains, no contractions, no infection markers, everything seemed fine and they discussed discharging me, but wanted to keep me one more day to keep an eye.
The following day they saw a bit of protein in my urine and I had some significantly elevated liver function results which they planned to repeat in the following day to check for preclampsia. That evening I started feeling period pains, I wasn't sure if these were actually contractions as I felt no tightening at all. They got worse and worse, and that night I couldn't sleep. At 4am I was checked and told I was 2cm dilated and in early labour. Because my water had broken, the doctor told me they wouldnt be checking me again for dilation unless it was absolutely necessary due to the risk of infection.
By 7am the pains had gotten worse, and the midwives felt I was I seemed to be in labour so I got moved to Labour and Delivery. I was put on continuous CTG monitoring due to being preterm, but seeing as all my pain was in my back, the machine didn't pick up any contractions whatsoever. The midwives told me to let them know when my contractions became regular. I was having very inconsistent contractions. So I wasn't sure if I was in proper established labour. By 4pm the pains had gotten so bad I begged the doctor to check me - so they did, with a speculum instead of fingers - and I was 5cm dilated. I got given gas and air at this point but I didn't feel it helped one bit.
Suddenly, within the next 20-30 minutes my contractions became really close together and were every 1-2 minutes. I asked for an epidural and the doctor said that she would check one more time and I was already 9.5cm dilated. It was too late for an epidural. Unfortunately I was so exhausted I couldn't push properly and 2 hours later I was still pushing, I was losing energy fast. So the doctors used a suction machine to deliver my daughter and she was born on 14.9.23, weighing 7lb 0z 😊
Soon after delivery is when the drama starred as I immediately began to hemorrhage. I lost a catastrophic amount of blood very quickly - 80% of my total blood volume - and was immediately rushed into surgery where I was put under general anesthetic and given 6 blood transfusions and countless drugs to save my life. Thankfully they worked and I am here today to be able to look after my daughter. I spent 4 days in the High Dependency Unit under 1:1 care. While there I also developed sepsis, and it was confirmed I had preclampsia. It's been a real roller coaster, I am still severely anemic and on antibiotics, blood thinning injections and blood pressure tablets, but we were able to go home a few days ago and it's such an amazing feeling.
I hope you ladies are all doing okay in your last few weeks of pregnancy and I look forward to hearing your stories soon 😊❤️