One week old

Harpers first week flew by! We didn't get home from the hospital until she was 4 days old and spent the next few days just trying to get Teddy used to her.

He seemed to really hate her & me at first. He'd been staying with my mum while we were in hospital and had never been left for longer than a night before. He wouldn't come near me & I felt terrible everytime I'd have to pick Harper up because he'd get even more upset. I was lucky that Joe had some time off and was able to give Ted lots of attention. 

The midwife came round when Harper was 5 days old to weigh her, she was back up to of 6lb 10oz after dropping to 6lb 7ozs at 3 days old. I was mixed feeding her which was going really well with her taking around 2ozs every 3 hours.

She got to meet her grandparents and aunts and uncles properly as they hadn't been able to see her when we were I hospital due to all the tests she needed to have done. 

I can't believe how quickly the first week went, and how much she's changing already.

Birth story - part 2

So Harpers now a month old and I'm only just getting round to writing the second part of my birth story. Having two babies under 2 is a lot harder than I thought, especially with one being a cardiac baby. Things have started to settle down a bit now so I should be able to update more often.

The first part of my birth story finished when they took Harper to special care straight after she was born. I'd had an epidural so couldn't follow her down as I'd hoped I would, but Joe was allowed to go with her. They told me I could go down in an hour once the epidural had worn off. As soon as the hour was up I was determined to go and see my baby, Joe came back to get me and took me down in a wheelchair..once we got into special care we wasn't allowed to take the wheelchair in so Joe had to help me walk over to her cot as I still couldn't feel my legs properly.

She looked tiny in the big incubator and had wires coming out from everywhere, the alarm kept going off as her heart rate kept dropping below 100, to around 90bpm but we were told this was fine as she'd had a low heart rate throughout my pregnancy. They explained they would do an ECG, a scan on her abdomen and an ECHO over the next few days to check she was all okay before they would let us home.

We had to leave her while they done the ECG and it was heartbreaking going back to the ward without my baby, I felt lost so as soon as I was able to go back to her I did. They told us the ECG looked fine and that they would start to get her ready to bring her to the ward. I sat with her until 3am while they removed different wires and tried to bottle feed her, which she struggled with at first but soon managed to take an ounce. 

At 4am we were back on the ward and she was just like a healthy baby, she could feed normally from a bottle and was filling her nappies too! This was a relief as we'd been told she was at risk of bowel obstruction so this was a good sign that things were working as they should. She still needed an abdominal scan to make sure which she had the following morning.

The scan showed all her organs are on the wrong side of her body, but seem to be working as normal. She has one spleen which is a normal size, but not the right shape..so she needs to have her immune system tested once she's around 2 months old to see if her spleen functions as normal.

They then got us ready to go down and have her ECHO done with the specialist. We were there over an hour with him checking every part of her heart in detail. He explained everything to us as he went along. Everything is pretty much the same as it was before she was born, the top two chambers of her heart have no separation so works as just a left atrium. She also has a small hole between the ventricals but this has partially closed and doesn't look like it will need surgical repair although we will have to wait for GOSH to confirm this. 

Overall the consultant was really pleased with how well she was doing and said we could be discharged right away. I'd been in hospital for almost a week - I'd never left Ted for more than a night so was over the moon that I'd be going home with both my babies.

The consultant said he would make all the necessary referrals, for an immune system specialist and GOSH to see her over the next few months. 

I can't believe how lucky we have been, Harper has a very rare & serious heart condition, yet is coping with it so well that to look at her you'd never know there was anything wrong. 

Teddy meeting Harper for the first time 

XxX

Birth story

I've finally got round to writing up my birth story, 3 weeks late! It's going to be a long post so I'm going to split it into two. This post will be up until Harper was born & the second will be on what happened after she went to special care. 

On Tuesday 17th June me & Joe took Teddy to Legoland for the day, which involved a lot of walking! On the journey home I began to get contractions every 10 minutes lasting the whole 2 hour journey home, but once I had got home they had stopped. They then kept coming on and off during the night and stopped completely again. I then had reduced movement on the Wednesday so I went to MFAU just to be checked over. When they put me on the monitor they wasn't happy with her heart rate and asked me to stay in overnight to monitor it. On Thursday morning I saw a consultant first thing who examined me and gave me a sweep and said they would be inducing me as they were worried & as I was 38 weeks didn't see the point in waiting any longer. She also said she didn't think it would take long to get me into labour, I'd just have to wait to be taken down to the high risk ward because of the baby's heart condition  the neonatal team would need to be present. She explained she didn't think the baby would be able to breathe on her own and would need help at birth. They then handed over to a different set of midwifes and the treatment I got was disgusting! 

Our Baby's heart should of been monitored throughout the day - I wasn't monitored once as I was told they didn't have the time to keep checking. I was then told they didn't have a bed on high risk, then they did but didn't have a midwife spare & I'd need one to one care so I wouldn't be taken down till the following day.  

Exactly the same thing happened on the Friday, I was told that they had closed the ward so was expecting to be taken down but was then informed that women in labour were still coming in and there was nothing the hospital could do if they just turned up. By this time I'd had enough and was missing Teddy so decided to discharge myself - they magically found a bed. I was taken down to high risk at 9pm on the Friday and had prostin at 11pm. I started contracting immediately and they were really strong coming every 3 minutes. I was checked again at 6am Saturday morning and was only 2cms so they broke my waters.

The contractions started coming on even stronger and by lunchtime I couldn't cope anymore so asked for an epidural. I really didn't want one as I'd hadn't had any pain relief with Teddy even though I had a 33 hour labour but I was so tired I knew I couldn't deal with the pain anymore. I was terrified but I couldn't wait for the pain to stop. It didn't! The epidural hadn't worked so they had to re do it, but thankfully it worked the second time. After about an hour they checked me again and I was 9cms but baby's head was really high up. They said they'd leave me a couple of hours before I'd start to push. 2 hours later and the head still wasn't down but I was allowed to start pushing, the midwife asked for the neonatal team to be called to say the baby would be on her way. 

It then all happened so quick, I gave 1 push and her head was out, everyone was running round panicking as the neonatal team wasn't there, second push and she was here - still no neonatal team. She was just laying on the bed then she screamed! The neonatal team rushed in and she carried on screaming so I was allowed to hold her. They weighed her and she was 6lb 13oz, you wouldn't of thought it looking at her she was tiny.

The neonatal team then took her off to special care for different checks but Joe was allowed to go with her, with me allowed to go an hour later after the epdiural had worn off.

Joe's sister managed to get a few pictures before they took her away...

XxX