Rise and Shine! it's a new day...
Zac, myself and the kids prepared to set off to Adelaide to get some more answers from the MFM team about our pregnancy since we just received the news about there being no fluid in the womb.
I personally did not know what it meant to lose your fluid or that PPROM was a thing and that it could happen to anyone, let alone me!
PPROM stands for Premature Rupture Of Membranes when the fluid in the womb starts to leak early in pregnancy results in issues such as IUGR, Premature Birth and many other complications.
Once we arrived to Adelaide there was a bit of confusion as they weren't expecting us, but after a few hours we eventually sat down with the MF team had them explain everything into more detail and further discussion about what we will be expecting.
At this point they couldn't give me a diagnosis because they simply did not know how it had happened.. it's was quiet abnormal!
The doctor explained that the few bleeds I already had must of been a mixture of my amniotic fluid and I was actually losing my waters as well. So from around 8 weeks on wards I was losing fluid without even realising!
They detected that my placenta is looking a bit funky and slowly detaching, my cervix was short and because there wasn't enough fluid around the baby at all they were quiet worried about his lung development and whether or not he'd be able to breath on his own.
The doctor went on to say that, In the "older days" this was known as a lethal condition and babies would not be able to survive but because of the technology we have today we have a chance! and what a relief it was to hear that.
So from 23 weeks I was expected to stay in Adelaide permanently until I gave birth. Hearing this was a bit much at first as not only did we have to worry about a high risk pregnancy we needed accommodation and a place that was safe for our children. Our life's were completely rattled we would now have to live 5 hours away from our home town and all of our family and support for god knows how long! The doctors then went on to tell us we had a 99% chance of going into early labour and having a premature baby. This was shocking news, both of our babies were full-term. At the time, I was 21 weeks. I personally have never been a big believer in anything above but you can bet Zac and myself prayed every god damn day that I would make it too at least 24 weeks. (Viable Stage) After all the talk about what was going on with the pregnancy we then moved on to talking about all the possible outcomes, obviously preparing for the worst as terrifying and confronting that was, we were prepared and ready to take on how ever long we had left. Imagine being told that you have 30% chance of taking your baby home. Now imagine being asked if you would like to terminate your baby that you have been growing for just over 20 weeks! I wasn't asked this once, I was asked this question just about every day until I was 23 weeks gestation. My heart completely shattered, every time. I could not comprehend that someone could actually say these words to me. This was my baby, I wanted to do everything possible to save their life. Everything in me, told me to fight for my baby. Over the past few years I have struggled with my mental health so have tried to work on that. In this time I found spirituality, yoga and meditation as a healing method. This became my biggest outlet to managing my emotions through a difficult time rather then crashing and I did it proudly! After hearing the news that we will need to move locations temporarily for the next few months, we now had to organise that on top of registering all of the news we had just received. Zac rang the Ronald McDonald house, in hope that they would be able to help us. In 2016 when Zachary was born we stayed there for a while. At the time they only accepted families who had a child in hospital. My partner explained our situation and they were happy to take us on as they had be been approved not that long ago to accept high risk pregnancies into the house. Lucky enough the house is only a 5 minute walk from the Women's and Children's Hospital. So that took the biggest worry off of shoulders. We stayed in the house that night and then set off home to pack our belongings for the long journey ahead.
While we were back home for only 3 days, we had our biggest bleed yet..
and when I say "we" I mean it!
You're probably thinking what does she mean "we" , what I went through that night was just as traumatising for my partner.
I was sitting on the couch and I felt the biggest gush, to terrified to move I yelled out to Zac "I'm bleeding again!" I stood up and took two steps away from the couch and the biggest puddle of blood covered the loungeroom floor like a murder scene.
I was sure this was it for our baby, the amount of blood that was coming away and continuing to come away was unreal.
Zac lifted me and carried me to the car to go up to the hospital, as I broke my heart out, I don't think I have cried that hard in my life. I was a mess! I remember my daughter who was 1 and half at the time just kept repeating over and over, "mummy's okay". Without telling her she knew something was wrong.
The whole 10 minute car ride felt like it went on for hours, I felt numb, everything felt so surreal. surely, this wasn't happening to me...
To be Continued....
Comments