Marvelous Monday at Birth Stories on Demand

 ❀Tammy❀ 

Photography by: Stein Photography
https://www.facebook.com/steinphotography

The picture on the top when viral a while back.  I love the follow up picture!  What a great family!

http://loveletterjewelry.com/

Simone's Birth of Braxton

The pregnancy complication nobody wants

Birth of Braxton

The long stressfull emotional journey began at 28+4 days gestation i had just had my normal midwife appointment at the hospital, where everything was going great blood pressure fine and tummy measuring right, the midwife gave me a copy of my ultrasound report from my morphology scan at 20 weeks, i took my report home and just kept it in my hand held record for refrence.

The next day i decided to read my ultrasound report, at first i was quite sure what i had read so i decided to google some of the medical terminology from the report to see exactly what i was up against and what the issue was, first i googled about the low lying anterior placenta ( just a plain simple placenta low lying at the front then i googled that my placenta had a posterior accessory lobe ( a xtra chunk of placent placed on the other side of my uterus) then i googled about the blood vessels across my cervix, and those two horrible words VASA PREVIA.

Vasa previa is a rarely (1:2500) reported condition in which fetal blood vessel(s) from the placenta or umbilical cord crosses the entrance to the birth canal, beneath the baby. The condition has a high fetal mortality rate (50-95%). This can be attributed to rapid fetal exsanguination resulting from the vessels tearing when the cervix dilates, membranes rupture or if the vessels become pinched off as they are compressed between the baby and the walls of the birth canal.

WOW i was shocked, horifyed, scared, and extremelly emotional, it was the weekend so i done my research and stormed into the hospital on the monday morning i spoke the obstarician on duty he read the report and was happy to book me and ultrasound for the following day and an appointment straight after for the results there it was confirmed the vasa previa was present, my pregnancy care was transferred to the hospital in the city 40 minutes away and put on bedrest and pelvic rest (no sexytime lol), where i had to wait 2 and a half horrible long weeks to get an appointment with the obstartician who just simply returned my case back to the small country hospital i was orginally being cared for which is a low risk hospital and only babies after 37weeks can be delivered there.

Needless to say when i returned the obstatricain was disgusted that the best hospital in the state with the nicu unit had sent me back to a low risk hospital. So in total now that 2 drs that had failed to provide me the care myself and my son needed, i was starting to get frustrated, a few questions ran through my mind WHY DID THE DR OVERLOOK MY 20 WK ULSTRASOUND REPORT TO BEGIN WITH AND NOT BRING THIS TO MY ATTENTION? AND WHY DID THE DOCTOR AT THE WOMEN AND CHILDRENS HOSPITAL SEND ME BACK TO WHERE THEY KNEW I COULDNT DELIVER OR HAVE THE RECCOMENDED CSECTION AT 35 WEEKS? :(

So straight back in to see my doctor at the smaller country low risk hospital, where i was then transferred to a hospital in between the large and small hospital which had a special care nursery which took babies from 33 weeks, this was a slight stress relief, but waiting another 10 days for an appointment killed me, by the time of my appointment i was 33+6, i went to the appointment ready to break down after a stress full 5 weeks for the uknown: was my baby going to make it safely? was this hospital well equiped for the care i needed if my vessels were to rupture? and most importantly what was there plan of attack to get this baby out safe and healthy with no major complications?

At the appointment i was finally relieved to know i finally had my care in a doctor that understood the risks and had delt with previous vasa previa pregnancys, only a few, but that was better than the negligence of the two other doctors. Straight out the dr told me i had 12 days left of "freedom"then i was to monitored in my 35th week of pregnancy at the hospital and a csection booked in for jan 4th 2012 36+3 gestation The 28th of december could not had come quick enough, i had my week long stay with no complications during that time.

Finally 4TH OF JANUARY had arrived the nerves had kicked in and i was ready to meet my little boy, my midewife accompaning me into surgery came in popped my cathedar in 30mins later got wheeled to the upper level of the hospital where the operating rooms were accompanied by my sister, while my sister got dressed in her surgery costume i was poked and prodded with general anisthetic into my forehands and my inner elbows to try get a iv line in just incase i had to go under after 4 failed attempts finallly 5th shot we had a vein.

finally wheeled into the operating room which my son was to finally be delivered as i was pushed through those doors and up on the operating table leaning over to get my spinal block put in, i just started tearing up, scared of what was to happen, joyfull that the last 7 weeks of the unknown was about to be over, my spinal block was sucessfull and the first try worked:) i was thankfull after just had been a pin cussion for the last 20 minutes with the iv.

At 10:13am 4th of january braxton phillip-oliver 7 pound 10 oz was welcomed into the world by myself and his aunty, we both started tearing up and were so happy to see him come up over the curtain wimpering and as beautiful as ever even all covered in blood and vernix, he was born with no major complications, some small breathing issues which corrected itself in 10 hrs and blood sugar levels which were amended in 48 hours.

all in all i actually never thought i would ever have a csection after an easy breezy 3 hr labour with my first born I'm absolutely sure that the day braxton was born his grandfather was deffinatly watch down from heaven to ensure his safe arrival of his 4th grandchild but first grandson:-).

vasa previa is a potentially very harmfull to an undiagnosed pregnancy and not enough obstatricians have guidlines inplace for these high risk pregnancys if you wish to learn a little more about vasa previa feel free to follow the linkhttp://www.vasaprevia.org/