Talk me though your really premature birth.

[WorzselMincepieYummage]

I am currently 24+5 with a baby who's likely to be born soon due to pprom. He's currently breech and the consultants said if i go in to about before 28 weeks i'll be able to have a vaginal breech birth which i am happy with, if he doesn't turn after 28 weeks then i'll have to have a section and i am fine with that too.

I am just wondering how really prem labours work.. i know thats probably a stupid question but do they take as long, are they as painfull and will i be able to move around etc etc.. will i even have to push ?

My daughter was born at 32 weeks and my labour was as i imagine a term labour to be, i couldnt move around due to monitoring but everything else was the same. it took 4 hours, she was 4lb8oz and i went though all the stages and it really bloody hurt. This baby is likely to arrive long before then so i excect it to be different but dont really know what to expect.

Another worry is that if i need pain relief then i dont know what to have, i had meptid and gas & air with dd but i was so off my head for a lot of the labour i dont really remember it. I need to be able to remember this one as our baby's likely to be very ill or be born asleep so i want to be able to remember it, not feel completly spangled, I am going to need my memories.

Would it be worth considering an epidural so i dont feel anything which is likely to alter my perception or is it likely to happen so fast i wont need anything ?

x sarah

[WorzselMincepieYummage]

You're so much more respectable !

[WorzselMincepieYummage]

Tinsel, i lived on Cheese and crackers whe i was in and i dont even bloody well like cheese !

[lizzytee]

Didn't feel it a few hours later plastered in post partum sweat, wearing mismatched pyjamas and attached to large bag of wee whilst talking to handsome young doctor.

[WorzselMincepieYummage]

All the fit Drs do tend to come out of the woodwork while your shuffling to the shower dripping blood everywhere talking complete garbage dont they, they must do it for fun.. i bet they go and compare mental new mother stories in the canteen in the morning.

[lizzytee]

Take care, better go do some work now.

[WorzselMincepieYummage]

Thanks for cheering me up a bit, you too tinsel

x

[LiegeAndLief]

Sorry Worzsel, haven't been on-line for ages! I don't really have anything to compare SCBU in the JR to, on the whole it was good and the nurses were lovely, although there were one or two who weren't so great. They have a family room with sofas, tv, kettle etc and one flat which you can spend 1/2 nights in with the baby before you take them home. Oh and several expressing rooms although there was often a bit of a queue! No accomodation or food offered for me once I had been discharged(and certainly not dh! am very impressed with some of the hospitals other people have been in). In hindsight there were a few things that weren't brilliant:

The doctors were always very busy and impossible to speak to - not really a problem for us but I was on a ward with a lady whose little girl was very poorly and she spent hours hanging around waiting to see doctors who never materialised.

The breastfeeding support was a bit hit and miss. Again, some nurses were very good at helping (especially the SCBU bfing expert, but she only worked part time), but some were rubbish. Ds had bottles (with our permission) when I wasn't there and no one mentioned cup feeding to me, which I didn't know about at the time. Skin-to-skin/expressing next to ds not encouraged. Nurses obsessed with how much milk ds had and insisting on topping up through ng tube after every bf even when he was feeding well and gaining weight.

Hope you are feeling better today

[TinselBaublesMistletoe]

Anyone else love the way that baby has been on a ventilator for how many weeks, then comes off and they withdraw all treatment (no NG, drip, monitor, into a babytherm etc) then she's coming home less than a week later Tink had 12 hours on a ventilator and is still ill from it now (I'm not going to start on the breastfeeding and expressing!) I'm so glad this isn't my first time, I'd be a nervous wreck by now with that story.

L&L, you sound like you had the opposite experience to NNU that I did I asked for a bottle one day, I had had enough and wanted to go home. They laughed (in a nice way) and said no because it's not what I wanted really and it wouldn't help establishing breastfeeding. The only thing that ever went in her mouth, other than my nipple, was a drop of EBM from the syringe if she was smacking her lips during a feed. They've all been trained in breastfeeding there and it doesn't matter who you talk to you will get the same answers.

[WorzselMincepieYummage]

Liege your expeirence sounds simalar to the one i had a the Horton in Banbury where dd was born.. I had very little breastfeeding 'support', all i got was a nurse that stank of cigarettes grabbing my boob and shoving it in DD's mouth. They also gave her bottles when i had expressly asked them not to I was never allowed to express by her incubator, no kangaroo was allowed care even thought here were lovely pictures of naked cuddles everywhere and they never really told me much. Its no wonder its such a stressfull experience eh. Maybe i'll push for BWH or LWH after all, i;d love to be able to BF

Tinsel, you still in hospital, any news ?

I had a consultant appointment and a scan and even though i lost loads of fluid over night we had a measurable pool .. a tiny measurable pool but it was there - 18.1mm so i am feeling slightly more positive today baby was fine apparently, i dont know how they manage to make anything out without fluid it all looked like a jumble of bones to me although we did get a lovely shot of babys face with him moving his mouth .

Had a chat with the constultant who out my stitch in as my lovely one is on holiday and he said hes known A woman who had the same thing and had gone though her pregnancy with little of no fluid and had a perfectly healthy baby at 36 weeks.. I am sure it doesnt bode well that he's only knows 1 woman but hopefully, this time next year he'll be able to use me as as example and say he's known 2 woman !

Its like emotional swings and roundabouts but i think both me and Df came out of the appointment feeling better then we went it.

Still having the life sucked out of me by this bloody cold though.. i am actually craving lemsip.

[TinselBaublesMistletoe]

I'm back home now, but my parents have insisted I move in with them (nice being back with Tink! Although she's decided to co-sleep and I'm in a single bed!) so they don't have to rush across Birmingham to pick me up and take me to hospital in the middle of the night.

There was a story in one of the magazines recently about a woman who's waters broke mid-T. They sent her home to see what would happen expecting her to lose the baby at some point. She amazed them by keeping the baby in and went to a decent length. They said the only thing you would know from the baby was s/he was very stiff from not having space to move for so long.

I'm also suffering with this awful virus that's doing the rounds. Try coughing through contractions - not just any coughing, the sort that normally pulls your bump in so much you can make out the baby! I was begging for linctus but there was only one doctor on over night (how clever is that? One obstetrician in a maternity hospital over night) then they were too busy to sign it yesterday.

[WorzselMincepieYummage]

I know what you mean about the cough.. i think the reason i was so leaky last night was because i spent all yesterday sneezing and coughing and snotting, i was sure i'd be squashing the poor child but i obviously just displaced some water lol.

It must be lovey for you to be back with yout DD, dont fancy sharing the single bed though, i hope your dd doesnt kick and fart and snore all though the night like mine does, she's like a little pig sometimes !

Are you 33 weeks now then ? have you made the decision not to go in untill you absolutly have to now ?

[TinselBaublesMistletoe]

No, Tink just thinks she can sleep like she's the only one in the bed! Not so bad in a double bed, but in a single it's no fun! I was lying against the wall, on my right side in the gap between the bed and the wall last night! She woke up this morning and put Milkshake on (I didn't know she knew how the TV remote works!) then Mum came in and took her into their bed.

I'm 33+3 now. I want to try to hold off as long as possible but I'm at other people's mercy so may not be possible.

[WorzselMincepieYummage]

Oh well thats good then, 33 weeks is a fab gestation, a couple more weeks and you mght be able to get away without SCBU atall and that'd be wonderful wouldnt it

Are you having a section ?

A couple of weeks to go for me and i'll have to. If you had told me at the beginning of this baby would have been a section i'd have been gutted but i'm not bothered. Strange how things like this rejig your priorities for you eh.

[lizzytee]

How are you today Worszel?

[LiegeAndLief]

What a shame about the Horton Worzsel, nobody ever touched me when helping me bf so they weren't all bad! and as I said the bfing expert really was very good, helped me with different positions etc. We were very lucky that despite the bottles ds seemed to prefer the breast and did manage to take him home bfing. They definitely never said I wasn't allowed to do kangaroo care either, no one objected when I did it, they just didn't suggest it. It's very sad that some SCBUs seem to be so ignorant of what's best for the babies and parents. TBM's hospital sounds much better!

[WorzselMincepieYummage]

I'm fine today Lizzie thanks, no changes still got a stinking cold though

Leige i thought everyone had their boob grabbed the nurses i met were certainly grab happy anyway, i was in to much of a dazed state to complain at the time but it left me feeling distinctly violated afterwards. Hopefully i'll be a bit more swtched on this time anyway

[babyjamas]

Worzel - glad you're still keeping going. in a bizarre way it is good that you're still leaking fluid - presumably means that it's buiding up and then leaking away again (? am i right) - which means that the baby is at least getting some lung excersise - i do hope so anyway.

bf became my mission whilst in SCBU - gave me something to focus on iykwim. expressed for 11 weeks whilst J was in SCBU and then came home bf. have had my boobs manipulated by a number of health professionals in my time. but then again i had exposed my nether regions to the poking and prodding of drs and midwives on so many occasions, i actually didn't care any more. i have since reverted to my much more normal prudish self!

[TinselBaublesMistletoe]

I know, each time I look in the mirror I'm amazed I'm still pregnant! I reckon if I can make it to next weekend it will be pretty much straight to transition ward. It sounds awful but I don't want to go much further, I can't cope with the uncertainty of it all. If someone who has never had a premature baby says to me they'd swap the stretchmarks, varicose veins etc I get angry, I'd happily swap with them if they want it but they don't know what they have. But having had one and having all these problems it would just be so much easier now if it was all over.

They want to do a section because I have an inverse T shaped scar. I'd rather VBAC. I've written a letter to my consultant which is on another thread (have a look in Childbirth) I've said that the risk of rupture is 1.9% and the chance of a successful VBAC is only 74% so I think it's a risk we should talk about. Also if I have a premature labour then it will be a crash section because they need to be sure I'm in labour before they section me so that they don't do it too early and I'm a rapid progressor. I want to avoid the crash section because I'm still suffering Birth Trauma from my last one.

No one should ever be touched by someone helping with breastfeeding, there's a hands-off policy. If you are physically helped to do it how do they know you will be able to do it alone next time? There was one time I was touched, the NN nurse saw I was having problems getting her on (I was too slow) and she held my hand on the back of Tink's neck and said "Tink meet Mummy" as she pushed her in. Thing was though we were having one feed a day and Tink was still learning how to do it so it wasn't so important and she didn't do the violating type grabbing!

I know a few women who came out of BWH not breastfeeding but from what I can tell it's the straightforward cases that get missed, especially if they don't ask for help. Anyone who stays a few days and asks for help will get it, I've only seen one bad incident (and it would happen to be one of the ward managers who happened to be in at the time, I don't think a lot of people realised who she was cause she was treated badly by a few people. I laughed - at them) but it wasn't what you would think either, she asked for a cup of formula as she'd had an elective and her milk wasn't coming in quick enough so she was worried her baby was keeping the ward awake. One MWA told her off for it and said she needed to keep breastfeeding. They offered to help but she just wanted to try and keep him quiet because she was worried about the others.

[WorzselMincepieYummage]

BabyJames - I think your right about the fluid. I seem to have a pattern of leakign for a few days and losing quite a lot then not leaking atall for 5 or 6 days and then losing it all again, My bump keeps growing and shrinking, its quite weird.

Baby had hiccups this morning and i think thats baby practising breathing so i'm hopefull that his lungs are doing something at least.

Tinsel i guess a lot of it must be fear of the unknown too, its easier to actually be doing something than be worrying about doing something isnt it. You've done really well to get this far, sounds like its been a right slog for you! Fingers crossed for 35 weeks +.

Regarding the section have they said the will do it routinly when you get to 36 weeks or thereabouts ?

They've told me they will just do mine if i go in in labour, no mention of doing it under GA. Why would they need to put you under for it is it just because they've have to do it in a hurry because of the scar ?

One of the midwives told me that I might have to have the classic vertical section if I go before 26 weeks but my consultant said there was no need and i could just have VBB.. he did say though what if I did there would be no way i'd ever be able to have a VBAC because of the risk as rupture so it sounds like it's not something they are willing to bend about

[TinselBaublesMistletoe]

The fluid builds up when the baby wees, so probably what's happening is there isn't enough water to push past then suddenly after a few days it does. I was in hospital with someone (a PROM but a bit later) who said she couldn't wee till the baby did!

I think you're right, being past my previous date means we're well into known territory now so there's no fear of the unknown having her out but there is if she's in.

GA will be because I take Heparin and if it's not expected they won't be able to withdraw the treatment and it won't be safe to put a needle in my back. Plus my back is so rubbish now that it could cause more damage (my physio said it was a good job I didn't have one last time).

They plan on doing it around 38 weeks before I can go into labour [hahaha].

I spoke to the ladies at caesarian.org and they said that there have been VBACs with classic scars, they also said mine isn't the same as a classic scar because it will only be a nick really rather than going all the way up. There is a document someone showed me from RCOG that lists the risks. I'll repost it on here later. I've been told the doctors don't like doing it because it goes against the "First do no harm" part of their oath. But they can't actually allow or not allow you to do anything unless you are sectioned (as in Mental Health Act) and even then they have to prove they know better. You have to sign to say you give consent to the operation and they can't force you into it, get someone else to do it or do it without a consent form.

Mum's a social worker and she told me of a family where they knew their baby would be removed at birth (other children had and this one was already on the register). The doctor said the baby wouldn't take a vaginal delivery and they refused a section because they thought they could avoid social services that way. There was nothing the hospital could do and the baby was damaged by a natural birth Not the best story to put in here, but it shows how little power the hospital actually have.

[WorzselMincepieYummage]

How sad

Do your blood thinning drugs cause any problems wth vaginal births ?

It sounds like your stuck between a rock and a hard place really and i dont have any experience to give you any advise about sections or vbacs so i wont try because i'll inevatably spout complete crap.

I know its a massive cliche but we both know hat really matters, a healthy baby and that things dont always go as we planned them to be anyway so if i were you i'd just try and keep the end result in mind and trust in the Drs to do the best for you, thats what i'd do anyway. I hope you don't mind me saying ?

[TinselBaublesMistletoe]

They don't cause any problems, they do like you to be off them though so that they can do an epidural if necessary. They can increase bleeding a little bit but it's not a big amount really.

I don't mind you saying. We're both in a position where a good outcome would a start!

[WorzselMincepieYummage]

indeed

I've just read though you letter and it sound fab, i hope it helps you to get somewhere with them.

1.9% is a pretty small percentage isnt it and you'd have thought that if you labour quickly then that lowers that risk even more.

What a minefield, i dont envy you having to make the decision.

[TinselBaublesMistletoe]

Thanks it probably sounds daft but as long as I get a discussion about it I'm happy, I don't like feeling out of control, especially with the old Birth Trauma hanging over me.

[WorzselMincepieYummage]

Naa it doesnt sound daft atall. It makes perfect sense really its our body and your baby at the very least you should be feeling as if your opinion counts !