Cleo’s birth story

*Trigger Warning!*

I don’t even know where to begin…

So after 2 cancelled inductions I was finally being taken in to get things started. By this point I was 39 weeks and I had been suffering with SPD since 24 weeks. It had got to the stage that I was on crutches to help me get about and I was regularly seeing a physio.

On 29th July at 3 in the afternoon I was admitted to delivery suite to get things moving. I was induced with Elsa so I kind of knew what I was in for. Potentially 3/4 days of waiting for Baby Fisher to make her appearance. As I was already on delivery suite Jonny had the choice to stay with me or go home after 8 in the evening. At 5 in the afternoon they started the induction process. The midwife did advise Jonny to go home as nothing normally happens on the first night. I had asked him to stay as I hate hospitals. Looking back now it is a good job that he did stay or he wouldn’t have been there at all and missed everything.

For the first few hours I had a bit of pain but thing too major, we went for a walk and Jonny went and grabbed me a McDonalds and brought it back to the hospital. I didn’t feel to bad but then at midnight, all of sudden I got very strong and painful contractions. The pain got to much and I had to Buzz the midwife. I got hooked up to the monitor and they could see that my contractions were one after the other with hardly any break between them, this made Cleo’s heart rate very high and it wasn’t dropping down to a normal level. I layed there and I was in agony and I didn’t know what was going on. I was given an injection to try to calm my contractions down, the midwife commented that it must have worked as I ‘got my colour back’. Unfortunately Cleo’s heart rate didn’t go back to normal. I had a doctor and a midwife in with me, they were muttering. All I heard were the words ‘it may be a c section’ my heart sank. It wasn’t what I wanted. I had my cannula fitted and had fluid through an IV to see if it would help. It didn’t.

The midwife said she would get me another injection. That never happened. The next thing I knew I had 6/7 people come running in to my cubicle and grab my bed and push me as quick as they could in to theatre. There was no time for anything. Jonny was left in a room on his own. There wasn’t even time for me to have an epidural, they were just going to knock me out. I remember parts of what happened in theatre. I remember feeling like I was having a panic attack and being pulled about, having a cathater fitted, stockings put on me, the fact that I needed to sign a piece of paper but I was and still am completely unaware of what it said.

The next thing I know it was 4.30 and I was waking up in recovery.

I woke up to Jonny and my mum standing around me. Cleo was in her bassinet. I still wasn’t 100% sure what had just happened to me. Cleo was born at 2.52 and I woke up at 4.30. So for and hour and a half Jonny sat there with Cleo not knowing what was happening to me in theatre. I was wheeled back to the ward and from then we have been trying to piece together everything that happened. My recovery in hospital wasn’t too bad. I had my cannula and cathater both removed on the Sunday, had a shower, had my dressing removed and started to walk around. By the Monday I was ready to go home, they let me go in the afternoon and I had to be prescribed Clexane as I had some blood loss.

Since coming home we have spoken to a number of midwives who have helped us piece together everything that happened. We now know that it was pretty much touch and go, Cleo needed resuscitating 3 minutes after she was born, I lost 1L of blood so that is why it took so long for me to come out of theatre, I had an allergic reaction to the pessary used for the induction and it over stimulated labour. Pretty much anything that went wrong, did.

All this information that we know and are still finding out is helping us deal with Cleo’s traumatic birth and I have been told that if I need extra support then it is there for me. We have been offered a debrief at the hospital so we are definitely going to take them up on that as we believe it will help us.

Over the past 2 weeks, being at home I have had to also deal with both mastitis and an infection in my wound. I’m really having to battle through some stuff with this birth. But I’m slowly getting there and I have had some amazing people message me and offer me so much support.

Thank you to everyone that has helped me over the last 3 weeks, I appreciate it so much!