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Week by Week
Alexander
My name is Sharon and my husband's name is Rob and we live in the North East of England, it was quite a shock to us to find out that we were going to have a baby as I had been on the pill. We had been married for 11 years and didn't really want children but when we found out that I was pregnant we were delighted. We bought all the magazines and books and surfed the internet to find out what I should be doing and not doing, what I should be eating etc. I was so surprised by the result of the pregnancy tester that I bought another one and did the test again, twice. The doctor was very nice and asked me to bring in a urine sample to send to the hospital for a confirmation but the test came back negative, I was devastated, I bought another home tester kit and did the test again - it was positive. So off went another urine sample and that one came back positive, yippee. The doctor now set up an ante-natal appointment with the hospital and arranged for the mid-wife to call on me and gave me some literature to read and then sent me home.
The mid-wife called and gave me lots more literature to read and took down all of our details, medical history etc., and then tried to take some blood, which was total failure. I have very bad veins for taking blood and this caused problems later on. The mid-wife decided to leave the blood tests as it was only a couple of weeks until the hospital visit so she didn't want to ruin the only visible vein.
Rob and I decided on names for bump, we decided William Alexander for a boy and Emily for a girl, if it's a boy then Alexander will be his name as William is the family name - Rob is really William Robin. I had been getting very bad morning sickness, well morning queasiness really but it made me feel just as bad as if I had been sick, it was worse after being in the car for any length of time. In week 8 my breasts started to ache and were very sensitive to touch, they hurt when Rob hugged me, I decided to buy a good support bra. My hip started to ache at about this time and my foot kept losing all feeling, the doctor advised me that it was a high progesterone level, which if I could put up with the pain was a good thing as a high level of progesterone meant I was less likely to have a miscarriage. By week 10 my gums began to bleed when I brushed my teeth so off to the dentist I went, he explained that I had body salts growing on my teeth (supposedly common in pregnancy) and he scraped it all off, very painful, the dentist advised me to rinse my mouth out with warm salt water every time the gums bled, which helped quite a lot surprisingly. Week 13 was the worst for sickness but I also got diarrhoea which lasted for some time and the doctor told me I should have gone immediately to see him when this happened, I had to provide a stool sample (very difficult to achieve) which he sent for tests but there were no problems, apparently there was a lot of gastric enteritis going around and I had a dose of it.
The hospital visit was the most nerve wracking and most exciting day of my life, we arrived at the ante natal and then we saw the senior midwife who asked a few questions and then weighed me and measured my height, she then asked whether we had decided on the downs/spina bifada test, we said that we thought the test was a good idea in principal but if the test said I was a high risk we were not sure about having the amniocentesis. She said that when we had our big scan in July they can look for further signs and we could decide after that so we agreed to have the blood test and then depending on the results to have a more detailed scan in July. The midwife also said would we like a dating scan today, it would be just a small scan to measure the baby and to confirm our dates, we agreed to this. Then we had to wait about 20 minutes to see the consultant gynaecologist he was very nice and all he did was ask a few questions and then popped me up on the table and listened to my heart. He then said we would do the scan, my heart jumped a lot and Rob came over and we held hands while he smeared the jelly over my tummy and then pulled the machine into place. At first all we could see was white noise and then a black blob which he explained was my bladder and then he pointed to a shapeless blob which he said was the baby and we were very disappointed, he moved the scanner and all of a sudden bump was there, we could see the nose and the head and the shape of a curled up body with one arm sticking out. I almost burst into tears at that point and Rob clutched my hand, then as if thinking I've had enough bump kicked and disappeared, a few seconds later after moving the scanner about we got bump back again, active little thing because it kicked about five or six times while we watched. The gynaecologist took some measurements and he thought that bump was about 13 weeks old where my dates say 14 weeks old so we are about a week behind. This means bump will arrive around the 12th December rather than the 5th. He talked to me about my weight and stressed the importance of not putting any more weight on but to try and keep my weight exactly the same being an overweight person and then we went to visit my mum and dad and tell them all about it. I have never had such an emotionally exciting time as seeing that little thing on the screen.
The next week I got an extremely bad pain, as though something had torn or split inside me, I didn't realise that I was not supposed to try and sit up straight from lying on my back, the mid-wife explained there is a nerve running at the back of the uterus that bump presses on when you lie on your back and all that had happened was as I sat up bump pressed on the nerve. Panic over. The sickness and pain in my hip has continued to hurt the whole time even though it is supposed to pass, people keep telling me it will get better but no sign of it yet.
I walked to the hospital which is about 2 - 2 1/2 miles from our house, by the time I got there my right hand had swollen so much with the heat that I could bend my fingers. The mid wife chatted to me and it is on my notes that I am squeamish to the point of passing out so she was very nice to me and kept asking if I was okay. She couldn't find a vein in the right arm so I had to swizzle round on the bed and she managed to find a deep vein in my left arm. The vein was so deep it hurt having the needle put in and having the blood taken but I managed to keep awake and not faint, now all I have to show for it is a bruise. The mid wife said they will phone me next week with the results of the downs syndrome test but they will only give me the other results if there is a problem, they will go on my notes so if I want to know I can read them there. We went on holiday at the end of the week and my feet and hands swelled up the car was like an oven the whole 8 hours it took to drive to Cullen Bay in Scotland.
My blood test result came back while we were in Scotland and the risk is high that I may have a child with Downs, this risk was 1:9 the midwife had been trying to see me to talk to me about the options available but as we were away they put a letter through the door asking me to contact them. I phoned the hospital and spoke to the duty midwife who told me that I needed to come into the hospital as soon as possible and talk to the consultant. She also mentioned that the blood test doesn't mean that I have a child who has problems it is only a possibility and other tests will be able to determine this. After that I sat and cried and we talked and I got my legs sun burnt because I forgot about topping up the sun screen. The only thing was we don't know fully what our options are until we go to see the consultant. However, the only things that I know about are having an amnio (the needle into the womb) and a scan, the amnio is the thing I have been most scared of, in fact I had nightmares about it since I spoke to the midwife. As we sat and talked for much longer than we would have normally we saw the dolphins crossing the bay, we watched them all the way across and they leapt just before they got out of sight, that cheered us up no end. We sort of felt it would be alright after that. We tried to enjoy the rest of the holiday but it did change our feelings somewhat being faced with the knowledge that we may have to make a decision about terminating the pregnancy.
I was extremely nervous as we went to the hospital for our chat with the midwife about the options open to us with a risk factor of 1:9 for Downs syndrome. We were told we would be seeing my consultant but he was in theatre so one of the senior midwives talked to us for some time about our options and what the test result meant. We have a 1 in 9 chance of having a downs syndrome baby but on the bright side a 1 in 8 chance of not. The midwife said that the only way to tell is by having an amniocentesis, they can't give me a sedative but I have told them that it wouldn't take much to send me running out of the hospital screaming so they are going to try and be as quick and gentle as possible. Perhaps strapping me to the table might be better. The amnio takes a sample of the amniotic fluid in which the baby is growing and the sample is sent away for testing, the test involves growing chromosomes from the sample and then counting them which will take about three weeks. A downs baby will have one extra chromosome than a normal baby which is why the test is so good, it is difficult to get the count wrong, the test will also tell us whether we have William Alexander or Emily on board. After our chat with the midwife she paged the consultant but he couldn't leave theatre and asked for us to come back at 1 pm which we did. He then went over the same ground as the midwife but also told us that there are a number of things which could have made my blood test positive and that a positive result does not mean the baby definitely has downs. He said that in all the years at the hospital he has seen hundreds of positive results from the blood test and not one from the amnio, so why do the blood test you ask, well the blood test identifies a possible risk from 1 in 200 people the amnio carries a possible miscarriage risk of 1 in 200 so it is better to have a non-specific test and do a smaller number of amnios. The only problem with this is that lots of ladies like me get very upset without reason. Anyway, he did reassure us quite a bit and my amnio is scheduled for 8.45 the following morning.
I arrived at the hospital at 8.40 and waited until 9.15 before getting in to see the consultant. Because he was running late he could not use the more powerful scanning machine as they were now in use for the normal scanning appointments, he had to use the less detailed portable scanner. As I lay on the table he asked my mum if she wanted to come and have a look at the scan, which she did, bump must have been asleep because although we could see the heart beating there was no other movement and he stayed at the back of the womb. Mum was so interested that she managed to get between me and the monitor and I couldn't see bump at all for most of the time. After measuring the distance from my skin to the fluid in the uterus he decided to send me to the foetal unit in Newcastle as he did not have a long enough needle to perform the amnio without risks. He then rang the foetal unit and asked them to fit me in this week, so I went home and waited by the phone, they rang later on in the afternoon with an appointment for 5 pm the next day.
We went up to Newcastle the next afternoon and after a 2 hour wait (they were running late) the amnio was performed. By the time they got to me I was so wound up that I could have run screaming from the building, but I was determined to go ahead with it, then they told me that the procedure is performed without anaesthetic which put me beyond fright and almost into terror or even hysteria. The midwife and doctor also told me that the culture might not grow and that this will have been for nothing, so with all this in mind they laid me out on a very comfortable table supported with pillows and did a scan. The scan showed nothing unusual with bump and that the uterus was very much further forward than it had been on Tuesday so the amnio would be easier, bump was in a perfect position and the doctor asked me if I wanted him to go ahead. I told him to just get on with it, I don't think I could have taken much more waiting, I was crying and holding onto Rob's hand for comfort, so in went the needle. Rob's poor hand got squeezed so hard you could almost hear the bones moving, I squeaked a few times and then the doctor said that the baby had moved and was now in the way of the needle and they would have to wait until it moved back out of the way, all of this with a needle stuck in me. A few seconds later he said we were in business and about a minute later that was that, they cleaned my tummy of all the antiseptic and put a plaster where they had put the needle in (by the way my tummy is a very pretty shade of pink from the antiseptic, it stains and takes a little while to wear off). They explained what signs to look for in case I miscarry from the procedure - there is a 1:200 chance of miscarriage - and then at 7.20 pm they let us go. There is some residual pain but nothing bad, just a slight ache in the muscles. Now we have the three week wait for the result.
The next week I had to go for a scan. It was strange because when I was laid on the table I couldn't see the screen although Rob and the technician could and I kept wanting to sit up and watch. The scan was technically very difficult and I had to go back in two weeks time as the technician couldn't see all four chambers of the heart or the kidneys. She also thinks we are about three weeks out with our dates which puts me back to 19 weeks. Personally I think the baby is just small because if I had conceived three weeks later I would have only been two weeks pregnant when I did my first pregnancy test and that is a bit early for a positive result. We were delighted with our picture and feel happy that everything seems to be going okay apart from the continuing nausea and pain in my hip.
Two weeks later we went for another scan, this was to see if they could see all four chambers of the heart and the kidneys. Whilst we were waiting the mid-wife came over and asked if we had had our amnio results, when we said we hadn't she smiled and said that bump was fine, everything was okay. I burst into tears and felt so relieved, Rob asked if she knew what the sex was and she said that she didn't but she thought that the amnio result was on my consultants desk and she would try and find out. She came back about 10 minutes later and told us bump is a boy, William Alexander. Rob is so pleased and so am I, I started crying again, the other people in the waiting room must have thought something was wrong but the mid-wife said later that I looked so happy when she told us. The scan went okay and the heart is fine but there is some fluid around the kidneys, again Alexander was difficult to scan. Apparently it is common to find some fluid around the pelvic area and they want to do another scan in a few weeks to see if this fluid has moved down to the bladder or is collecting, this is a minor event after the last few weeks and even if it turns out that Alexander has one non-functioning kidney he will be fine. We were given another couple of pictures which we can see his face in - not clearly I admit but we can see it and we think he looks a bit like Rob. My mum and dad were pleased that everything is fine but mum doesn't know what to knit for a boy and would have liked a girl.
The next week, week 24 of the pregnancy I got a pain in my chest, I thought it was from a strained muscle, it had been getting very difficult to turn over in bed with the bump out in front, or it could be epigastric acid. It felt as though it was trapped wind and if I could burp or something everything would be fine, I went to the doctors and she signed me off for a week - I've spent so much time off work during this pregnancy - but didn't examine me further than a prod around the tummy.
Now it all seems like a dream, only two weeks ago I was getting ready to go to the doctors for a few more days off work. When I went to the doctors he asked a few questions about the pain I'd been having, he thought it was probably epigastric acid and nothing to worry about but asked me to pop up on the table and he examined me. He gave my tummy a prod and then went to get a Doppler to listen to Alexander's heartbeat. He tried very hard but couldn't get a heartbeat and told us it was probably the amount of tissue the sound had to get through or that Alexander was in a bad position but just to make sure he would refer me to the ante-natal clinic at the hospital for them to check. We were obviously worried but not unduly so and dutifully drove to the hospital where they took me in for a scan, more reliable than trying to hear the heartbeat and we would be reassured by seeing him on the monitor fit and well, unfortunately when they scanned me they couldn't find a heartbeat. Rob couldn't believe it and I began to cry, Rob asked for a second opinion and they got a doctor to perform the scan and they found the heart but it wasn't beating. The technician took some measurements and it seems that Alexander died a few days after the last scan was taken two weeks earlier, he hadn't grown very much since then. Rob and I were left alone for a few minutes to come to terms with the news and have a bit of a cry. They then measured my BP which was so high I could have had a seizure at any moment; they rushed me up to the labour ward and gave me something to bring the BP down. The midwives were wonderful on the labour ward and all expressed their sympathy and did everything they could to make things easier for me and for Rob. They had to put in a drip and a catheter and hooked me up to a BP monitoring machine which checked my BP every 15 minutes, unfortunately with my BP being so high the machine had to pump the cuff to bursting point and bruised the top of my arm so badly that by the next day my BP was going up every time the machine started to work. My face began to puff up and went very red and I got a temperature, they gave me some anti-biotics to counteract that which worked without any problems. I had various doctors trying to get the BP down but the drugs they gave me made me sick and brought on a violent headache which kept me awake all night. On Thursday, which was the next day after my admission, they decided to induce Alexander's birth and inserted pessaries after giving me an internal examination, they did this five times with three hours in between each one. By the end of the day I was very sore and in a bit of pain, each pessary brought on period type pains but nothing else. They did keep giving me the medication for the BP which made me sick so they decided to give me Friday off. During Thursday there was a big scare when my BP went through the roof and they couldn't get it down, at any second I could have had a seizure and I had three doctors and two midwives all panicking around the bed. On Friday they took out the catheter and the drip (but left the piece in my hand) and took off the BP monitor and moved me into a lovely room with a comfortable bed and an en-suite bathroom. I had a lovely bath and I could walk about to relieve the pain, a nice quiet day, I still had to have blood taken and my BP monitored but in between these things I could do what I wanted. Then on Saturday they decided to try a different drug to induce Alexander, after another internal which showed I was about 2 cm dilated (that accounted for the blood etc., I was losing down below) they inserted some tablets and not long after I began to get period type pains. They had found a drug which didn't make me sick which seemed to be keeping my BP down and that was a big improvement and we then just had to wait for things to happen. Four hours later they gave me another tablet to bring Alexander on and not long after that I began to get stronger pains. At 3.15 I rang for the midwife because the pains were coming at 1minute intervals and were quite strong, they gave me a strong pain killing injection and at 3.45 they brought in the delivery trolley, by 4.15 Alexander's feet were in the open air but the rest of him was stuck, I pushed and pushed but we were getting nowhere, they couldn't feel the cervix but the opinion was that I hadn't quite dilated enough and we needed to get some more of the drug inside me to open the cervix to let his head out. Unfortunately the cannular in my hand had clogged up and they couldn't get the drip in and couldn't find any veins on the other hand. The contractions had stopped or become so weak we couldn't do anything with them, they called for the doctor and then I got into trouble. The pain became so intense I was taking the gas and air continually and they were trying to get the drip in my other hand and they tried to give me an internal to see what was happening. The gas and air was making me dizzy but the pain was unbearable so I passed out, when I came to the drip was in and they had given me the internal but I wasn't really back with them, I was panting and couldn't control my muscles but it wasn't long before the drug kicked in and my cervix opened fully and out came Alexander. The pain subsided and I came back to full consciousness while we waited for the afterbirth to come. The afterbirth was whole and I had no other problems. Rob said he had never been so scared in his life when things began to go wrong, he could hear the rising panic in the midwife's voice and I couldn't respond to what she was telling me. My BP stabilised and the next day they let me out after taking some blood and checking the BP.
Whilst we were in hospital we had to make lots of choices about whether to see Alexander or hold him after he was born (which I didn't) and if we wanted photographs of him and whether we wanted to make our own funeral arrangements or not (not - the hospital is making the arrangements) whether we wanted a post-mortem (yes). They also gave us literature to read on what happens after a stillbirth. We couldn't have had better care in the hospital and it is continuing now I'm home. The midwife has come every day sometimes more than once to check my BP and make sure I'm okay, the doctor has been out three times to make sure my medication is working and that I am recovering. They have given us Alexander's photograph and we have had the funeral and we are trying to find the strength to carry on with our lives.
I wrote a dedication to Alexander to be read out at the funeral, here it is: Today we say goodbye to William Alexander, it is our chance to say thank you for the joy you brought to our lives, even though you had less than half a life. We will always feel cheated that you were taken from us so young, before we had a chance to know you but we must learn to be grateful that you came along at all. Only now that you are gone can we truly appreciate what we have lost and we want you to know that life without you is very difficult. Although we will never know your smile or hear your voice, you will grow in our hearts and dreams, we are proud to have you as our son. Alexander you will never be forgotten and we will always love you.
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