Yes, and obviously with me being with me being overdue the midwives came quite frequently just to see if anything was happening. And they booked me in for a standard induction on a certain date, saying, Right if you’ve not had your baby by then, we’ll book you in, and you’ll go in on that day and, and things’ll proceed.

I think they must have come in about day five and they did the manual sweep to see if they could start things off, and they did all the routine tests of my blood pressure which had started to go up, just ever so slightly, but nothing significant. And at that point, I just felt heavily pregnant, didn’t feel anything wrong.

And then, one afternoon I was sat on a birthing ball in the living room and I just got all these horrendous lights coming in front of me and my head and I thought someone had hit me over the head, this severe pain, so I thought ooh I don’t feel very well and felt very sick. And I thought ooh I’ve gone into labour, because obviously I’ve never had a baby before. I had no idea other than physical pain. I didn’t know if these were just quite normal.

So I got my books out and rang the hospital and spoke to the midwives and they asked me to ring my community midwife and I rang her and she came out, took some bloods, did a urine test and just examined me and everything and took the bloods, ranging me later with the bloods from the hospital saying I was borderline having the starts of pre eclampsia. So she said, You rest. And when I say rest, you rest. You know, you’ve got to be really careful. And came in every day.

Then so, that started on the Thursday. On the Saturday I started with really severe headaches again and the, the visual disturbances were there pretty much all the time. So I felt very, very unwell. By then I couldn’t put shoes on my feet, because my feet were so swollen and I started to get pitting oedema on the legs. I mean I didn’t think my face looked swollen, but when they saw me, they were like, Yes, you are, you are very swollen. But I think that was then I felt that poorly I didn’t really, I wasn’t bothered by then.

So we got the pleasure of going to [hospital] Maternity Unit for the day where they could monitor [daughter] and make sure she was okay, monitor my blood pressure. They did, I had to do a twenty four hour urine collection over the weekend, for looking at the protein and my blood pressure all the time and it was just going up and up and up and they were like, For now, you’re okay. You can go home.

So we went home on the Saturday after being there for about nine hours, since my (or I) came home with the 24 hour collection and I was told to ring if I felt anything had changed overnight, and I had to go back in at 4 o’clock on the Sunday just for them just to see how I was again.

Sunday morning I got up, well I mean I can barely remember sort of the Sunday, Monday because it all just I felt that ill. So I got up on the Sunday morning and I had to take all my jewellery off because my hands had really swollen. I mean I could see it at that point. And every time I moved I felt very dizzy and very, very unwell.

And I got a little bit of tummy ache. Not like labour pains, because we never got to that point. But I just felt, I didn’t feel right. So I rang the ward and they said, You need to come in.

So we got there, they did my blood pressure and I think it was something like 220/130 something. So they said at that point I was definitely not going to be going home [laughs].

I was having a completely normal pregnancy. I felt well. I was going to yoga, I was going swimming 2km a week, everything was completely normal. I was having a lovely time. And all the rest of it.

And I went for a routine 32 week GP appointment one morning, 8.30 in the morning and said, Your blood pressure’s too high And I said, Oh well, whatever Because I’ve had, I’ve never been regular at having my blood pressure taken because of something that happened back when I was at uni and so I always hate having my blood pressure taken. And so, I sort of brushed it off a bit, and said, to him, You know, I’m sure it’s okay Or whatever. He was like, I really want you to go into hospital And I was kind of like, Oh that’s a bit extreme And he said, Look, we’ll agree because you’re a physio, and I trust you. You can go to work, but I want you to take your blood pressure once an hour for the next three hours. I’m calling you at 12. If it’s still too high, we’re having this discussion again And I said, Okay, that’s fine. Fair enough

So I went off to work and I took it for the next three hours and it was still very, very high, so we agreed that I’d go to the hospital. Which I did, and went to just the day assessment unit, where they did more monitoring of it. It was basically, it was still high, but borderline as to whether they’d medicate or not. So I think they said, if it was over a 150 on a 100 they’d definitely put me on medication. If it was well below that they wouldn’t bother. Mine was sitting pretty well bang on that. So they didn’t know quite what to do. So they took some bloods as well and basically said to me, Look, we don’t know quite what to do with you. Come back on Monday, and we’ll see how things are then. Unless we call you and tell you that your bloods are off, and then we might ask you to come back in So that was fine.

So I came home and then I got a call the next morning, Friday morning, now saying, Your liver function’s a bit funny. Can you come in And I said, Fine So I went in and we pretty much had a repeat of what happened on the Thursday. Essentially, the same things all happened again, except they talked about admitting me, but then decided not to, because they said, it’s the weekend; nothing’s going to happen over a weekend. Why bother putting you in hospital when we can’t do any tests and things. So you may as well go home

And the only thing they did that was different, was they did an ultra sound of Caleb just to make sure that his growth was okay, because they were suspecting pre eclampsia by then and so, apparently, their grown can be affected to they wanted to check that. But that was all completely normal, which was great. So I went home for the weekend. And had a pretty horrible weekend. I felt really, really uncomfortable. I just remember this tight pain kind of here, right under my boobs and trying to work out, you know, what that was, whether that was my liver being quite up high and that was the pain, and that’s what I thought it was, but God I was uncomfortable, and I couldn’t sleep and I just wanted it to be Monday, because I just wanted some kind of resolution. You know, this hanging around was terrible, because no one could decide what to do and it was horrible.

So I was quite relieved when Monday morning came and I went in again, and they said. I mean the blood pressure was still the same. They still didn’t know whether to medicate or not, because it was still borderline and I had no other symptoms of pre ecl

Well I had a model pregnancy. Barely even registered it [laughs]. No morning sickness, no nausea. No reactions to smells like I believe some women experience. I was exercising. I was going to the gym up until about 22 weeks I think it was. And it was quite straight forward and I was still working fulltime. And you know, I had the regular checks, and everything was all right. Really happy about everything, going very smoothly.

And, let me see. I got to, well, about 34 weeks and I had what I thought was indigestion. I woke up at night with pains between my ribs. And I thought, well this must be indigestion. There’s nothing else for it. But it was quite hard to breathe, and I had that twice in a week, but I didn’t even mention it to the midwife, because I assumed it was indigestion. I actually told her it [laughs] it was indigestion.

I had one episode of slightly high blood pressure, but the rest of it had been fine, and then I was told by the midwife that I was so low risk that she wouldn’t need to see me for another three weeks. So I thought oh wonderful. And then ten days later it all went horribly wrong.

I’d been out for a meal the day before. I’d been swimming that evening. I’d been tutoring as well. And on the way home, I was thinking about dinner, as pregnant women always think about their next meal, and I thought, I don’t feel hungry. And I thought, oh this is a bit odd. Didn’t think much of it, got home and didn’t feel right. Something I couldn’t put my finger on. You know your own body don’t you? You know when something’s not quite right. And, I went on the NHS Direct website and I’d felt a bit swollen, my ankles were larger than normal, slightly uncomfortable. My fingers were slightly tingly as well. And I went down the check list of pre eclampsia and I thought well, general feeling of being unwell, swelling, and I thought well that’s a couple of things ticked off.

So I texted the midwife, and I said, I don’t feel very well. Feeling slightly swollen. Possible pre eclampsia? And she didn’t reply for four days [laughs]. Which is a bit late by then. So I text the other midwife that I had a number for and she texted me back the next day. I didn’t want to call them because it was about 8 o’clock at night and I thought well, I’ll just sleep it off you know.

So I called my partner. At the time we weren’t living together and I said, I don’t feel very well. And he asked me if I wanted him to come round, and I thought oh no, I don’t want to bother you. But something said, yes. Just you know, get him round. And then I have a blood pressure monitor, just as well and I took it and it was extremely high. It was 191/113. Which is high, and I thought oh gosh this is bad.

And I took [partner], I took my partner’s blood pressure and that was fine. So I took mine again and it was still the same high reading and on the NHS Direct site it had also said high blood pressure.

So I called NHS Direct and I said, I’ve got this, this, and this. And they said, You should call the hospital. So I was due to go to have the baby at a maternity ward. I was going to have drug free [laughs] water birth, you know, how it goes. And they put me in contact with the, with another hospital, and I told the midwife exactly how I was feeling and I told her the reading on my blood pressure monitor and she said, Well it must be faulty. So I said, I’m really sorry. I feel really stupid. Sorry to have bothered you. And I thought right I’ll just go and sleep it off.

&

Yes, on the Sunday night. So I still felt exceptionally unwell with this severe headache and visual disturbances. And of course my blood pressure just kept going up and up and up. They put me on fluid restriction and obviously every time I went to the loo I had do it in a pot so they could monitor what was coming in and out. I was strapped to the bed strapped to the bed with the monitoring equipment on. So I couldn’t really, it was quite how I thought it never would, because I was hoping for a natural water birth. I thought, I thought it was just going to all beautiful and lovely.

So I had all the monitoring on. Wasn’t allowed to go anywhere unless it was to the toilet so I really, you see I wasn’t allowed to eat or anything, just 100 mls of water an hour that was it, that was all I was allowed.

So I got induced probably about 9 o’clockish – 10. Between 9-10. And then probably at about half past eleven at night I just thought phew I have a really bad back ache. Really horrendous back ache. So I thought, I got out of bed, I’ve got to get out of bed, because it wasI felt like someone had just kicked my spine round the back. It was horrendous. So I sort of got up and sat on the birthing ball that they’d eh, left for me.

I sat on that and then all I could feel, it was just contraction after contraction after contraction. They were literally there. I’d gone from absolutely nothing to full on contractions within probably an hour and a half.

So they came and examined me again and gave me some gas and air because it was just, well the pain, well I’ve never felt anything like that before. Obviously I was still monitoring and everything, but I hadn’t progressed. I think I’d gone like 1 cm and nothing was happening. So they were like, Right, well we’ve got a long way to go. But obviously see how you go. Just try and relax. Try and have some sleep But it was getting, the contractions were coming faster and faster and faster. And obviously as that was building up, so was my blood pressure. It was getting higher and higher and higher. And I just felt like I were on a different planet.

I’m still getting little sketches bits of information coming back to me, because I was just so out of it and they gave me some Labetalol I think it was called to bring my blood pressure down. Which, it did work, it brought it down, but by then, I think I’d sort of gone to a different level. I mean all I kept saying is, I want to go to sleep Because I felt that poorly I just wanted to go to sleep. And they were all like, No come on, you’re all right. You know, we want to get this baby out And then they tried to come and cannulate because they obviously knew something was, something was kicking off but they didn’t say anything to me, they were just very calm, and very relaxed, saying, You know, we’re monitoring you Because I knew my blood pressure wasn’t right. But at that point everything else. Yes, we weren’t progressing ready to deliver, but we were, knew everything was, you know, baby was okay.

They tried to come and cannulate me but at that point I started to shut down, so they couldn’t get anything in me. So I ended up with probably, well my arms were black and blue, because they really tried bless them. I felt quite guilty because there was just nothing, they couldn’t go anywhere.

Then they still kept monitoring my blood pressure and baby. But my blood pressure started to come back up again even though I’d had Labetalol it was still, it was, you know, obviously I just needed to have the baby there and then.

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And yes, I had to go and have an emergency C Section. But the consultant didn’t seem to think that it was an emergency as such. It wasn’t desperate. But I was just wondering why they weren’t helping me and taking the pain away [laughs].

You know, I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t mentally prepared. I certainly wasn’t emotionally prepared. Luckily I’d had some time to sort out a moses basket and some clothes and nappies, but that was what the last four weeks were for. For reading the books. For doing some research. For decorating the nursery, you know, getting it all set up. That was going to be the joyous moment of preparing. And that was all taken away from me, I suppose. Well from us.

But so, I went into the theatre, just completely mind blown. And then the next minute I heard a cry and the doctor said, Well he’s fine And I found that I couldn’t really sit up. So they cleaned him up and then they, they put him next to me. I couldn’t really see him. I was like this. And so we were together for about fifteen, twenty minutes. This tiny little boy. I was expecting a nine pounder [laughs] and he was only five pounds.

So we had a little boy and he was fine. He just needed steroids for his lungs and a feeding tube a bit later.

And then it all went a bit blurry, and I didn’t know it, but I’d gone very yellow. I must have been jaundiced, and I don’t remember a lot about it from then on. I just remember lots of movement and fuss and the baby was taken away from me, and then I was in an ambulance, because I had to get transferred to the A & Eand it was very bumpy. I remember that.

I didn’t really understand what was happening. And then I was in Intensive Care for two days. Obviously kept on drugs , with my catheter [laughs] and I had wires in my arms and my legs, because they ran out of space in my wrists. So they had to go through my legs. They took my blood pressure every fifteen minutes. It was just being monitored. I just remember hearing the beeps of the machines constantly.

Yes, so that was that for two days. But I was better than some people. I mean the woman next to me was in a coma, so, [laughs] she wasn’t much fun. And then I was transferred to high dependency and I was allowed my partner to visit and a friend. Sorry can I have a tissue? I’ll get some kitchen towel. I should have been armed with a tissue shouldn’t I?

A few days before that, we had been to see some of the doctors in the hospital and one of the doctors who was a young doctor, she was about 30 years of age and she was talking, and she was talking about a possibility that we might have to have our baby earlier than normal. And we were like, okay that’s interesting. And she’d sort of explained to us that, she was born at 32 weeks herself and so part of me was sort of feeling, okay we’re almost up to 33 weeks now, and here’s you know, a well-educated, attractive doctor, whose obviously done really, really well for herself, she was born at 32 weeks and it hasn’t prevented her from doing anything at all. So that had actually sort of, that was in the back of my mind, thinking, okay there mustn’t be too much wrong with being born at 32/33 weeks. So there was that.

And I think we’d also had a discussion with a few other people, some friends who had had a baby earlier last year, also said that when we got past I think the 31 or 30 week mark, Ooh that’s a major milestone. I was like, Really, why is that? And they said, Most of the organs are probably formed by that stage, so I obviously remembered that when we were in there being told we were about to have a baby in a couple of hours. So I was thinking that things should be okay at being born at 32/33 weeks.

But yes, so then I got discharged and go to come home, which was fantastic. I’ve never been so happy to see this couch in my life. And then, so that was sort of the next phase of two weeks of going in to see him. He was well the whole time, which was really, really good. He was on, he sort of had a bit of oxygen and a heated mattress. I think it was about five days after he was born, and then after that, it was essentially nothing, other than he needed to develop a sucking reflex and to be able to eat for himself. So that, that was really good that he was healthy. And so yes, so we just had the exhaustion of going to and from the hospital every day, sitting in that horrible institution kind of room all the time, and that was exhausting. And, and we also fiddled with that as to like what was the best way to work this again, you know. Because you feel like you want to be there all the time, because you’re the child’s parent, and you really want to be there and all the rest of it. But then you think, what am I doing here, you know, like he’s asleep half the time. There’s no point me standing here, watching him sleep when I need to rest. You know, I’ve physically been through a fair bit and this child’s going to come home to me, and if I’m useless when he comes home what’s the point. So yes, so we sort of I think eventually decided to kind of go in for a reasonable chunk of the day, but then come at a reasonable hour and not feel like we had to go back and stuff like that. And again, I think there were some nurses that were better about then than others. Some made you feel like, oh you’re not coming back for a night time feed, you know, and all that. Well no I’m not [laughs] I’m going to sleep while I can, thanks very much.

And have you thought more about other children? I mean she’s still quite little, but have you

Yes, yes, we are talking about it now. Which is something that’s, again it’s took me two years, because I mean, I always wanted children close together. I always wanted two close together, but after the first episode, I was just like never, ever again, because of what had happened to me, and all the midwives kept saying to me, don’t let it put you off And I was like, How can this not put you off How can it not? You know, but now I just think they would just monitor me like a hawk and I know they would. Not that I particularly want that, because it sort of takes a lot of the, the naturalness and the sort of letting your body do what it needs to do. But at the same time I know that they would totally monitor me this time. Not that didn’t before. Because they did. But I mean me and my husband one of our main things, is why did they not induce us earlier? And why did we have to wait until we got to the critical point, rather than if it started on the Thursday why couldn’t I have been induced on the Friday? Rather than having to go, for things to escalate to the point where it was horrendous, when if I had it done on the Thursday I was still, oh I was still at point where I was okay. I wasn’t well, but I was all right, and things might have been very different. They might not have been. But they might have been.

So I think it impacted on us for a long time, the thought, I mean I think if I’d found out I was pregnant I think that would have been the end of me. I think it would have just destroyed me, because I was so frightened, whereas now, I just think, yes, I would be quite happy now. I’d be more than happy.

Yes.

Because I think in my mind I’ve put things to bed so to speak. I think, yes, because I talk about it, and like getting involved in this and the pre eclampsia thing. I think that really works for me.