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
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