Today I have something really special for you. And I mean really special.
Andy's version of events.
I asked him to write something as a few people had said, "Gosh, poor Andy to witness all of that!" And you'd be right. I read this last night and was just speechless. Despite being there and going through it, I never really realised just how bloody bad it got actually.
Turns out, Andy's quite good at writing (well I think so anyway) so hopefully you'll find this entertaining in places despite being also quite traumatic to read in others. He takes us beyond where I left off, for me, majority of the ordeal was over once I was knocked out in theatre, for him, that's where it really started...
Please leave him lots of love, comments, messages on Facebook and Twitter etc. as it's taken guts for him to write this down for me to share with you. It's quite a long one, but please stick with it....
Over to Andy...
So, three weeks after the successful birth of our baby son,
Woody, Amy has asked me to write down the experience through my eyes before my
male habit of shoving traumatic experiences into a mind locker and throwing
away the key commits the details of the event to some dusty corner of my brain!
I call it successful because here we are three weeks and two
days on, and I am back in the office and Amy is at home looking after our
little perfectly healthy Woody on her own.
For the 4 days immediately subsequent to his birth it really didn't feel successful at all, and indeed for the 48 hours after it seemed
absolutely catastrophic, in the medical sense of the word rather than the
dramatic.
This is basically the story of how four nearly became two,
how I witnessed Amy tug on some hardcore inner strength to pull herself through
a terrifying trauma, how I saw our son being brought back from the dead, and
how I spent a significantly longer amount of time than I would have liked
pacing the hospital thinking of the specific way in which I would have to tell
Scarlett that Mummy wasn't ever coming home.
In other words, this is the story of Tuesday 17th
December 2013.
So, I don’t know who will be reading this, that’s up to Amy,
but I am assuming that whoever does read it will have read Amy’s words so
there’s no great need to go into the detail as to how we ended up where we were
on the morning of the 17th, that being in Delivery Room 5 at St
Helier hospital waiting for Amy’s waters to be broken.
It started off better than the previous day, whereby we
waited 12 hours for the same procedure to be undertaken, but only just. The
labour ward consultant told us that Amy had made his day because she wanted a
VBAC, as the vast majority of women who are having their first baby ask for a C
Section, never mind those who are pregnant for a second time after a previous C
Section. So that certainly buoyed me, and reasserted that at the end of the day
this was something that Amy really wanted, and it was the right decision.
However, after waiting probably around 3 hours for our
midwife to get to work, we were told that she had been reassigned and we
therefore were given a new midwife. (This new midwife turned out to be fairly
wet behind the ears, and leads to Question Number 1 on our list to ask the
consultants during our debrief – was the midwife experienced enough to deal
with the extremely delicate operation of inducing a VBAC?)
Anyway, Amy’s waters were broken as planned, and so the
wheels were certainly in motion – ‘there was no turning back now’, as the
senior midwife helpfully reminded us in a strangely apprehensive way (she did
know that baby’s usually have to leave the mother’s tummy at the end of the
pregnancy in any event, right?).
Anyway, after a good long walk around the sights of the St Helier
estate and Rose Hill Co-op, and numerous laps of the lifts/stairs, there was
little movement. So the Syntocinon was started, again as planned, around 5pm.
Almost as soon as it had, so did the contractions. I just
rubbed Amy’s feet whilst we listened to Air (We hastily skipped the Goldie
Looking Chain when ‘Your Mother’s Got a Penis’ started chiming out during one examination....). I felt excited that the show was really on
the road now, and pretty soon Amy was going to give birth and it was all going
to be sweetness and light – a genuine sense of excitement crept over me.
Amy seemed to be dealing with the contractions really well
over the next few hours. They were very regular, and despite the midwife
telling her at every opportunity that she has never encountered a Syntocinon
induced delivery where the mother did not require an epidural, Amy stuck at it.
After a few hours of the midwife continuing to ramp up the
Syntocinon every 30 minutes despite Amy’s contractions being very regular
indeed (Question Number 2), the contractions were now thick and fast, every 2
minutes, possibly 1 and a half. They were just relentless and intense due to
the synthetic hormones racing round Amy’s body and she started to struggle a
little.
To qualify this slightly, I've always maintained that Amy
has a fairly low pain threshold, something I have ribbed her about previously.
I now think, however, that her pain threshold is a moveable feast which she can
control depending on how bothered she can be with dealing with the pain. On
this occasion, based upon the intense contractions and the pain that I can only
imagine Amy must have endured over the following few hours, I now know that she
can take pain like a boss, no doubt about it.
Amy felt she needed an epidural, and so this was arranged.
Amy was hooked up to monitors to ensure baby’s heartbeat was going along nicely
and he was not getting distressed. Every time Amy had a contraction the heart
rate would dip, but would then recover immediately (later the midwives and
consultant would term these ‘typical decelerations’ and nothing untoward). I
hated listening to the heart rate, as I had done at every appointment in the
weeks leading up to the day, as I become obsessed and frantic at every change,
higher or lower, and just sit there, ears pricked, teeth clenched, palms sweaty
in a total stress. And this was no different, I was intently listening to the
regular ‘bubuum bubuum’ at 140 bpm for hours, and then glaring at the screen
when it slowed during a contraction and waited anxiously for it to return to
140.
Anyway, the midwife, it turned out, was even more obsessed
than I was, as whilst Amy was getting into a very awkward position for the
epidural to be put in by the anaesthetist, which naturally disturbed the
monitor on Amy’s tummy, the midwife was going mad in a panic telling everyone
she cannot hear the baby and basically telling the anaesthetist to hurry up.
Now this is a process whereby a long needle is carefully
inserted between two vertebrae into the spinal column to a very specific depth
to allow the drugs to numb the waist down, whilst not causing any damage to the
spinal column itself which could cause nerve damage or indeed paralysis! All
whilst Amy is moving about every couple of minutes with the contractions. The
last thing the anaesthetist needed was the midwife flapping, but flapping she
was, stressing everyone out! This, I felt, was really where I became aware that
she was indeed inexperienced, and that the inexperience was now telling and
having an effect on the situation. I was holding Amy tightly to keep her back
in a stable position, and trying to calm this midwife down by telling her it is
obvious that the monitor pads have moved, whilst looking at the beads of sweat
collecting on the poor anaesthetist’s brow. Pandemonium, and nothing had even gone wrong – yet!
Anyway, Epi line in, or so we thought, and panic over. Drugs
started to calm Amy down a bit and taking the edge off the contractions, so
that was good. I read the drugs packet and was ‘low dose epidural’, so I knew
that there was more available if Amy needed it – which she did unfortunately.
Anyway, 8pm rolled around and it was handover time, goodbye
to the panicked midwife, hello to the OCD one who spent the first 10 minutes
tidying up the clutter which by now was taking up floor space and trolley space
(with hindsight, this was a very smart move and showed professionalism down to
the last detail, as the area was perfectly clear for the incoming crew and
equipment when the elephant shit unexpectedly splattered all over the fuck off
wind turbine a bit later).
The doctors were on their rounds around 9pm, and the leading
consultant was thankfully one whom we have met a couple of times before and was
familiar with Amy and our story to date. She knew what was happening and she
checked everything out. Amy was progressing nicely at this stage, dilating well
to 5cm, (I think!), and so it was agreed that they would come back in two hours
and see where things stood. If Amy got to where they wanted her to be then the
labour would continue, if not, they would take Amy for a C Section – as
planned.
New midwife and a sense of calm restored. She knew what she
was doing, and just got on with it. Amy still in pain and asking for top up of
epidural regularly, and so the anaesthetist became a familiar face, and our new
midwife was asked to keep topping up the Epi line every half hour to keep the
pains at bay. But it didn't and despite large doses of a more concentrated
solution, the Epidural seemed ineffective (little did we know that the line wasn't in correctly, or had pulled out slightly, as during the birth I noticed that
the bed was soaked behind Amy’s back, suggesting all or most of the Epidural
solution had leaked straight out! Whether this was the result of the panic
during the insertion of the Epi line, who knows (Question 3).
So at this point I sensed a slight change in the mood from
one of control to one with variables. What if the pain gets too much and can’t
be sorted, and what does this mean that the pain is still unbearable despite large
doses of the Epidural.
Things progressed and at around 11pm Amy had dilated 8cm.
Consultants were happy-ish, slightly less so that before, and spent a long time
looking at the printout from the monitors – lots of discussions regarding the
‘typical decelerations’ and whether they were indeed typical, and it was
becoming harder and harder to pick up the baby’s heartbeat with him moving
around and getting lower and lower in Amy’s body. Someone had to physically
hold the monitor (looks like a small round drinks coaster) in place on Amy’s
stomach. Hands sufficiently numb from doing so on the part of myself and the
midwife, the consultants decided the best thing to do to ensure that baby can
be monitored was to place a clip on baby’s head. Amy winced at the idea,
worried it would hurt baby’s head, but it was considered essential to ensure
his health, and so this was agreed to.
The consultant had with her a doctor (who I am guessing was
of some experience, despite being young, and was training to become a
consultant herself). The doctor, (Dr Melanie), needed a couple of bites of the
cherry to get the contraption to work and the process was explained a number of
times by the consultant, which sounded like she was instructing her to put
together an Ikea bookcase. She got there in the end, and the low grumbly
‘bubuum bubuum’ of the ultrasound monitor was replaced with the more familiar
‘beep beep’ of an electronic heart monitor. Crazy stuff really to think they
can monitor the heart beat in this way from inside the womb, but this was
really the lifesaving decision, without any shadow of a doubt, and it cannot be
understated.
So, consultant/Dr Melanie decided to leave it another two
hours, and would return whereby they expected Amy to be fully dilated and ready
to rock n roll! If she wasn't, then again they would proceed to a C Section.
After they left the lights were turned low again and some
peace returned, although the anaesthetist was called a couple more times to add
to the epidural. At some point the senior midwife visited to check on things,
and Amy asked about pains she was having, not just the contractions but a
distinct pain on the top side of her uterus which were worrying her. We were
all too aware that THE risk of a VBAC delivery is a ruptured uterus, and this was
the reason for all the monitors and the strict timeframes during labour, so
that the uterus isn't put through so much stress (which is also the reason why
VBAC candidates aren't regularly induced, as an induction always puts extra
stress on the uterus over and above a natural spontaneous labour – why did they
use Syntocinon in the first place then? Question Number 4 – but perhaps the
most pertinent).
The midwife dismissed it somewhat and they assured us that
they could tell from the baby’s heart rate if there was anything untoward
happening, as this would be the first sign before any pain. She even introduced
a little acronym, FEAR, False Evidence Appearing Real. So with that we were
confident that things were still going well. So the four of us, Amy, myself,
baby and the midwife carried on as before. I rubbed Amy’s feet, Amy breathed
through the ongoing contractions and the midwife went about her business.
Then around half an hour later, things stopped going well,
and they did so pretty quickly. Suddenly baby’s heart rate dropped from the
usual 140 down to around 30, and it didn’t recover. At this point the midwife sprang
into action and asked Amy to move onto her side, so I helped her, but nothing
changed. It was all so sudden that it didn’t really register, despite my
phobia/obsession of those monitors. Nothing changed and baby’s heart rate
remained rock bottom.
Battle stations.
The button was pushed and literally within seconds of the
alarm sounding the once calm and relative empty room was filled with doctors,
nurses and midwives. I have no idea whereabouts they all were in the hospital
at that point, but it seemed to me like they must have all just coincidentally
been standing outside the door at the very moment the button was pushed, as the
room suddenly filled with blue as if the building was under the ocean and
opening the door had let in a torrent of water.
There were Paediatric doctors, about 8-10 midwives and
nurses, the anaesthetist and Dr Melanie who we knew from earlier. The head
midwife pulled out the ‘stirrups’ from beneath the bed – I’d seen these black
things at the bottom of the bed but had no idea what they were, now I knew. Amy
was examined and was fully dilated, so the order came to push. Baby was getting
worse and the urgency was growing. I held on to Amy’s hand and just waited for
her to give me a sign of a contraction, at which point I just remember shouting
at her to push with everything she had to get this baby out.
Suddenly there was the loudest crash in the background and
the instrument trolley full with essential equipment somehow collapsed and
spewed its precious contents all over the floor and out into the corridor. It
was in the background and insignificant to what has happening to me and Amy
inside our bubble, so my mind focused back onto Amy.
It occurred to me suddenly that she was giving birth, right
here, right now, and it was happening so fast. Baby wasn’t really moving down
and so Dr Melanie asked for the forceps. ‘We don’t have them’ came the reply. A
rather stunned Dr Melanie loudly repeated her request, ‘Well I need them
immediately’, and sounded more Scottish than ever (she looked pensive/concerned
during all of her routine visits to our room that night that I got the
impression she was a pretty stern and determined person who basically didn’t
take shit, full stop). A few midwives flapped around near the door and repeated
that they didn’t have them or couldn’t find them. Dr Melanie now just held out
her hand and merely said ‘Forceps, now!’, and I genuinely would not like to
have been the person to have told her they were still missing at that point.
She was so calm but so forceful at the same time. All of this happened between
contractions, and thankfully, finally the forceps were provided to her.
These were not as I expected, they came in two halves and
she carefully inserted one side, announcing the same, and then the opposite
side, again announcing that she had done so. She then fed one through the other
and they clipped together. I just remember how clean shiny and well engineered
they were and how they glided together so easily, they worked perfectly.
I can’t remember if this happened before or after, but Dr
Melanie then produced a pair of surgical scissors and began cutting at Amy,
calm, calculated, brutal. I've never seen flesh cut like that, and it was
crazy. I knew what she was doing having read numerous books Amy had told me to
read, but that didn't console me. The amazing thing was, Amy didn't even
flinch, I genuinely couldn't believe it. I just squeezed her hand and wished I could do something more.
So, Amy was having another contraction and with that I held
her hand even tighter and told her to fucking well push! And I watched Dr
Melanie as this smallish young lady looked as though she was trying to pull an
oak tree down with her bare hands as she pulled the baby out. It shocked me how
forceful she was, literally all her strength, grimacing and shaking with the
strain! And out popped baby.
He was immediately placed on Amy’s chest for a second,
before it was clear he was not well. He was passed to the paediatric doctors
who had been standing beside the resuscitaire, one each side, patiently waiting
for baby to be passed to them, at which point they sprang into action like a
clockwork machine. The clock on the resuscitaire, a green LED clock, was
started and the counting began out loud ’15 seconds, no breath’, ’30 seconds no
breath, increase oxygen’, ’45 seconds, no breath, suction, ventilation’…. They
knew what they were doing, however our baby was at that point not breathing,
and his heart rate was still on the ground as it was just prior to delivery.
At this point, less than a minute after he was pulled out,
it was clear in my mind that there was nothing I could do for my son. My
attention had to be with Amy. It was clear that she was haemorrhaging very
badly, and was visibly traumatised. The shaking began immediately, and I was
sure that Amy was going to have a panic attack or a bloody heart attack due to
the stress, so I did the only thing I could and that was lie to her. I told her
that the baby was going to be fine, that he was ok and that she just needed to
remain as calm as she could and to breath. She needed to breathe through it and
try to slow her racing heart.
By now, with baby not breathing after 3 or 4 minutes,
I had subconsciously had to make a strange and horrible assumption. I assumed
that our baby wasn't going to make it. How could he?! He wasn't breathing by
himself and they kept telling me that every 15 seconds. So, with that settled,
I had to somehow make sure Amy didn't die so that I didn't lose both of them.
All I could to do in that regard was plead with her to calm down and I just
remember leaning over her and telling her to look at me and that everything was
fine and that she had just achieved something absolutely amazing and that he
was going to be ok, and that she was going to be ok.
The midwives were frantically, but calmly, zooming around
the room doing this and that to try and make Amy better. She was losing a
tremendous amount of blood. Dr Melanie was now trying to stitch up any damage to
stem the bleeding, but Amy was clearly going in to shock.
At 11.56, 9 minutes after he was born, baby cried. I cried.
I couldn't believe it. I heard them say he had cried, otherwise I wouldn't have
believed my ears. Then he stopped, then he cried some more. The two doctors
(two people who will remain in my thoughts until my dying day, Dr Jonathan
Sturgeon and Dr Judith Hall) were working on him constantly, shaking him,
moving his arms like bird’s wings, prodding, sucking, listening, asking him to
wake up in such a comforting way as if trying to rouse their own sleeping baby,
rather than what they were actually doing, which was to shock our baby into
breathing for himself. But it worked, and he was breathing. I was flitting
between Amy and baby as much as I could and I could see he was now alert and
crying, if a little floppy. The head midwife asked us if he had a name.
At that point I asked Amy, because she had to name him. I
could not possibly have any part in that decision after what Amy had gone
through to bring him into this world, and Amy confirmed Edward, ‘Woody’. And
Woody was here.
They wrapped him up and Dr Hall gave him to me. I literally couldn't tell if he was ok or not, so I quickly showed him to Amy and then, panicked, I
passed him back to the Dr’s so they could make sure he was alright. I literally didn't feel like I could be in charge of such a fragile and precious thing and
I needed the professionals to tend to him right now to make him ok. After a
little more fiddling and observation, Woody was taken straight up to the
Neonatal unit for extra oxygen and monitoring. I wasn't sure he was going to be
ok, and Dr Hall wasn't either, but he was breathing and that’s a start. The
midwife kept reassuring me that he didn't go blue at any point, and that the
Dr’s were forcing oxygen into his lungs throughout so that he would not be
starved. I hadn't even thought about that until then, I just wanted him to
‘wake up’, and he did.
So, attention back to Amy. This is about 20 minutes after
Woody was born, and Amy’s statistics were deteriorating on all fronts. Her
blood pressure fell through the floor to something like 80/40, her pulse went
up well over 200 and her breathing/oxygen sats were very bad. She was white
like a sheet and her lips were disappearing. I kept asking her to have a drink,
lucozade or something, anything, to get her to stay awake, stay alert and get
better. I kept telling her that Woody was ok, he would be fine, which started
to feel less like a lie by this point, and that she had done amazingly well. I
wanted her to know that she had done so well, I couldn't really express it, but
she had just done something so amazing, and brought our little boy safely into
the world despite everything that had just happened to her.
She had an oxygen mask working overtime, and due to the
shock they needed to warm her body up. They used ‘forced air warming’ or Bair
Hugger Therapy, whereby basically a large inflated blanket is placed over Amy
like a cocoon, and hot air is blown constantly under the blanket. I was
sweating profusely due to the heat, but Amy was like ice!
This went on for what seemed like an age. They needed to get
fluids into Amy to replace the blood. They needed to take blood to get a
precise match for a blood transfusion, but this proved impossible, Amy’s veins
were disappearing.
Thankfully, and I really do mean thankfully, Amy had a
cannula in her hand where the Syntocinon was fed during the labour, and this
was now the only point of entry to administer fluids to keep Amy alive. Without
the correct replacement blood, they were using a kind of plasma-ish liquid
which I guess is a short term generic substitute for blood. They hooked this up
to the existing cannula and two midwives were squeezing the life out of the bag
of fluid to get it into Amy as quick as possible. I guess they didn't feel like
this was working and so they applied an inflatable cuff to the bag, similar to
a blood pressure monitor cuff, and the head midwife pumped and pumped like
crazy to get this bag of fluid squeezed into Amy’s body. She worked the pump so
hard that the bag actually exploded like a water bomb, showering the fluid all
over all of us. So, out came another bag and the squeezing continued.
The anaesthetist was in the meantime trying to get another
line into Amy’s body, anywhere she could, however she was struggling. She tried
a needle in Amy’s hands, forearms, arms, shoulders, feet, groin (using a 5 inch
needle and an ultrasound scanner) and eventually neck, however it wasn't possible. She finally gave up, stating aloud "Her body is shutting down, the
veins are closing, I can’t get another line in".
In the back of my mind Amy was on the brink. They were
periodically coming in to remove surgical pads placed at the end of the bed in
order to weigh how much blood was being lost. It was a lot, 3.8 litres it
turned out to be in the end, so that is approximately 80% of her entire blood
supply, and a class 4 haemorrhage – with cardiovascular collapse, apparently. She
needed 9 pints of blood. Guess what I’ll be doing for my New Year’s
resolution?!
It was approaching 1am when the decision was made that the
bleeding could not be stopped, and therefore Amy had to go to theatre for
surgery. She was to be put under a General Anaesthetic, and she had to sign a
consent form that basically stated that should the need to arise for Amy to be
given a hysterectomy, then they were allowed to go ahead.
It was all very quick, and suddenly Amy was taken away from
me – wheeled down the corridor for the theatre. I said goodbye to her, and then
followed her until she was out of sight. It’s a strange feeling of relief when
someone is taken out of your hands entirely – not actual relief, relief is
probably the wrong word, as at that point I was beside myself with worry, but a
slight if very short lived respite. I’d
been through a similar experience with my dad, which ended badly, and so I was
seriously unbelievably scared and anxious. (Obviously my dad hadn’t just given
birth, but you get the idea).
At this point I walked back down the corridor to Room 5, and
I was suddenly alone. All the Dr’s and nurses had disappeared, the bed was
gone, it was just empty, when only a short time ago and still ringing in my
ears, it was a hive of manic, focused activity.
But now I was on my own, not knowing if Woody was ok or not,
and basically thinking that Amy wasn't going to make it. During the past couple
of hours I hadn't allowed myself to think about this, there wasn't time and I
had to stay positive for Amy, but now the thought burrowed its way into my head
and I could no longer remain positive. The head midwife and her colleague, both
present at the birth, came in and saw me and gave me a hug and I totally lost
it. They tried to reassure me, but they weren't convincing and I needed more
than promises to get me out of this, I needed to see Amy fit and well, and
until then I was scared witless.
So all I could do was walk. I walked up to Neonatal to see
Woody – he was doing much much better and Dr Hall said she wasn't too worried
about him anymore, his cord bloods from birth were very very low in whatever it
is they measure, however bloods taken an hour later were up to normal levels –
he had bounced back and you wouldn't know anything had happened to him. Who
knows if this will have any effect on him or not, (Question 5), but he was safe
and well, and looking good, and ultimately in the very best place for now.
I couldn't possibly sit with him, however, until I knew what
was happening with Amy, so I went down and out of the building and just walked
for hours, returning periodically for updates. At first things seemed to be
going well, there were some tears which they fixed and Amy would be out soon,
apparently. However as I was walking down and out for about the 8th
time at around 4am, I heard the words "They've had to open her up", and the
head midwife gasping. I didn't even stop, I just carried on walking again and
this time I was convincing myself that things were not going to go well. I
tried as hard as I could to stay positive, at least outwardly when speaking
with the midwives and Amy’s mum, however inside it was turmoil and I had the
conversation with myself about telling Scazz that mummy didn't make it a few
too many times – I was a bloody mess.
At one point a large black Mercedes pulled up outside the
building, and I had a suspicion that this was a surgeon who had been called out
to assist with Amy – I saw him a bit later on in the night/morning coming out
of the operating theatre confirming my suspicions. It was serious, no doubt
about it, I just didn't know what the outcome would be. I wanted Amy to be ok,
like really ok. She did an AMAZING job with bringing little Woody into this
world, she looked after him so well and she just wanted him to be ok – she went
through hell during his birth and she didn't deserve any of it. She certainly didn't deserve any serious problems for the rest of her life – something I
considered a real possibility. And she definitely didn't deserve to lose the
fight. I just didn't know what would happen, so I carried on walking!
Every time I went back up for an update there wasn't any
news, and I was given another hug and a flapjack or a cup of tea, bless them.
Anyway around 6am finally some news, good news! The midwife
told me what I had already assumed, that they discovered Amy’s uterus had
ruptured at the point of her previous scar tissue from Scarlett’s C Section,
Amy was amongst the 0.5%. It had ruptured badly, however they had managed to
repair the damage, and they bleeding had been stopped. Suddenly Amy was ready
to be woken up, and they told me to just wait in Room 5 for her to come past,
and to make sure I was the one to tell her Woody was ok.
I heard noises, and then a shout from the head midwife – I
came out and there was Amy coming down the corridor, awake but out of it, but
ALIVE. I counted my blessings and told her Woody was absolutely fine.
She was taken to the labour HDU, however her observations
were still bad, (I could see that myself whilst sitting there obsessing over
the bloody screen as usual), she needed more blood and better monitoring, so
she was transferred to the main hospital ICU/HDU unit, where she spent 36 hours
recovering, before being taken back down to labour ward HDU on day 3 and being
reunited with Woody. He was being taken care of in the Neonatal unit until Amy
was back down on the ward – purely for logistical reasons. They were ready to
discharge him back to the labour ward on Wednesday lunchtime, but Amy wasn't well enough to be released back down.
During that time I was zipping around the hospital looking
for people we knew, our other midwives who we had seen all along the pregnancy,
so I could fill them in etc. But everyone knew already! Amy was like a
celebrity, everyone had heard about ‘that night’ on the labour ward and what
Amy had been through, it was a massive event. I genuinely don’t think that kind
of thing happens very often at all, and it was really nice to hear everyone’s
get well messages and they were all confident of Amy’s recovery, so that helped
immensely to give me the energy to carry on. After being at the hospital for 36
hours and going through all of that, I was shattered!
Over the next few days I spent as much time at the hospital
as possible, however juggling that with our 5 year old, Scarlett, who was
thankfully still at school that week, was awkward and we called upon lots of
help from Amy’s family. There were lots of questions from Scarlett, mainly
about why mummy wasn't home yet, why brother wasn't home yet, and why I was
spending nights and days at the hospital – but thankfully the answer to all
those questions was a billion times easier to give her than the ultimate answer
I was so scared about having to give her in the hours after Woody was born. To
keep things as normal as possible I came home from hospital at 6am and got into
bed, so that when she woke up at 6.30am it looked as though I had been home all
night! And I told her we weren't allowed up to hospital to see mum because I
was being too noisy and all the other mummy’s had complained about me, and the
Dr’s had told me to go home! Scarlett was amazing, and I am so so so proud of
her.
So, after spending another couple of nights at the hospital
looking after Woody while Amy rested (they really need to invest in some comfy
reclining armchairs for the dads!! Preferably with a drinks fridge and TV
attached), Amy was well enough to be back down on the ward with the ‘normals’,
and then home on Sunday night. Amazing.
We saw Dr Melanie again on day 3, this time she looked 100%
different than she did on the night of nights, she was calm, sanguine and
relaxed, and cheery! Was so good to see, because I knew that meant for sure
that Amy was well, and that she was out of danger. She was a great Dr, and I
wish her all the very best.
There are lots of other details but that’s the nuts and
bolts of it all. It was a roller coaster to say the least, but we are out the
other side of it all now, and looking back. Amy is still feeling the physical
effects, which will disappear with time, and also the emotional and mental
effects, which may take a little longer, but this experience is now in our
history, and we can look forwards to the future with excitement at the
uncertainty of what life will bring us – what it will bring all four of us.
Just a final note, to say that yes we have questions about
the events and the decisions which led up to Woody’s birth, however I know that
I can never ever thank the Dr’s and the midwives who saved Amy’s and Woody’s
lives on that night. They saved my family. They were amazing, and professional
and calm and just everything you could ever want in a life or death situation
like that, and I owe them so much. We will return to thank them all
individually in due course, but nothing could come close to showing them my
gratitude. I remember Dr Sturgeon saying when I was gushing to him the
umpteenth time, thanking him for saving Woody’s life and saying that I really
didn’t know what I could do to ever thank him enough, and he simply replied ‘you
can look after the little man and give him a good life’. And that I will.
