Charli’s birth story
Oh what a ride both my births have been. First of all if you haven't read Paige’s birth story I suggest you start there, this will set the scene for my wild journey. I've never had that skin to skin baby bubble and neither of my girls have had their first feed from me; it's been through a tube both times. I’d decided to have a planned cesarean because of the craziness of Paige's birth and the miscarriage I endured (you can read about that here too).
The night before Josh and I had dropped Paige to my parents house, got an ice cream on the way home for dessert and had leftovers for dinner. It was calm, peaceful and we were ready to meet our baby. In the morning Josh got up at 5am to walk the dogs, we had to be at the hospital by 6:15am. I was admitted to my room and we waited. I was meant to be the first surgery of the day and was told it would be all done by around 9am but there was an emergency so we had to wait, but that was fine we just chatted and watched tv, still so calm and enjoying the experience, so much different to the drama of Paige. At around 9:30 am I was taken down to surgery, and then we were delayed again by an emergency. Still feeling good, just hungry as I hadn't eaten since the night before.
Finally I was wheeled in, given my spinal block and set up ready for surgery, then just to add some spice to it all I started to feel faint and vomited because my blood pressure dropped so low. Once I was stabilized they brought Josh in and started the cesarean. Out popped a baby at 10:48am, and it cried. Josh and I were instantly happy as this did not happen with Paige, then we realized Charli was a girl and laughed. We and everyone else thought she was going to be a boy, we had boy names ready but not really a girl name, we laughed and thought “oh shit its a girl, we need a name”. We were laughing tossing around a few names and then I realized that they were not giving her to me, she wasn't being placed in my chest like I had thought. The mood and energy had gone from relaxed and calm to seriousness and concern. Then they turned to us and said “we need to take her upstairs” wheeling her out without stopping to pause. Josh instantly said “I'll go with her” and walked out. Fortunately, but also super sad, we had been here before, unlike with Paige he didn't need to ask if I wanted him to stay with me or go with Charli, we had a game plan, we had been here before. My baby had been taken from me and I was left wondering what the fuck was going on. Unlike with Paige though, I was fully aware and awake. With Paige because I'd been in labour for 43 hours and it was late at night I actually don't remember going from maternity and most of the surgery, and I fell asleep in recovery, but this time I was awake, sitting in recovery, sitting in fear, wondering if she was alive.
At about 12:30pm I was wheeled up to the maternity ward to find a whole heap of people surrounding Charli (we still hadn't settled on her name), a mask on her face, tubes and cords hanging from her. Josh and the midwives were talking to me telling me what was wrong with her but to be honest this is where it all gets a bit blurry, I don't totally remember what they were telling me. I just looked at her, cried and asked “how the fuck” this could happen again.
They told me that she had a punctured lung and because of this air was building up in her chest outside of the lung, she had a pneumothorax. Initially when she was born she was fine but as they cleaned her up they noticed she was struggling to catch her breath, it's not common but it can happen, they think she just took too big of a breath when she arrived and it was too much for her lung so she punctured her own lung. They were talking to doctors on screens in Canberra getting instructions on how to care for her. The midwives noticed that Charli was settling when I spoke so with all her tubes and oxygen, they managed to transfer her to me so I could hold her for about 15 min. They told us she would need to be transferred to Sydney or Canberra for treatment though before that they needed to release the air inside her chest BUT they are only a level 3 hospital so they actually were not meant to do it and no one had done the procedure before to a newborn!!! The head midwife told the doctors in Canberra no they were to get someone here now to do it, but there wasn't time. So the doctors in Canberra talked the pediatrician and anesthetist, who they had called up from surgery, through the procedure. Josh and I sat back and watched as they practiced their skills on our baby, it was like they were watching and following a youtube video on how to do it. It was fucked. But they did an awesome job. She was stable.
At about 4pm that afternoon my mum and nan arrived with Paige. We were still waiting for the plane to arrive to take Charli. Paige walked in and was so overwhelmed by what was happening she cried. Josh had to take her for a walk. They let me hold Charli again for about 15 min before they wheeled me into my room where there was less happening and Paige could relax a bit more. Until this time I'd just been parked in my bed next to Charli in the midwives office/nursery. I don't even know what time this was but I remember the midwives coming in and asking if I wanted some help hand expressing some milk for her to take to the next hospital as I wasn't able to go with her, thats when I was hit with the biggest wave of emotion yet. I cried hysterically and couldn’t talk, it was at that moment I realized that she really was about to be taken from me. Now instead of enjoying the newborn bubble it became a conversation about Josh and his moves. Was he flying with Charli, what hospital was she going to, should he drive, when was I going to be able to go. The decision was made that Charli would be taken to Sydney about a 4 hour drive from us and that Josh would drive so he could bring her home if she was released, at this stage they didn't know if or when I would be able to go.
I eventually worked up the strength to express some colostrum to send with her. This became a touchy subject for me and opened up a whole other level of emotion because with Paige I had expressed heaps of colostrum while pregnant which they gave her until she was ready to feed, she didn't need any formula, but this time I just didn't get a chance to, so I cried and felt like I’d let Charli down.
At 6:45 pm they wheeled her in to me to say goodbye, all set to go in her incubator ready for the plane ride, this was the most confronting image yet. By 7:00pm she was gone, Josh was gone and mum, nan and Paige were all gone, I sat alone in my room. I called the midwives and told them to get the catheter out of me, I had a shower, cleaned myself up and got dressed. You'd think this would be where the drama ends but about an hour later the midwife came in and said that there was an issue with the oxygen tank so they had returned back to the hospital until it was sorted (I didn't see Charli, they just waited in an emergency). Eventually they set off again on the plane. I waited up until Josh got to the hospital around 1am where he slept on a chair for the night.
The next day Josh was able to hold, do skin to skin (Josh has done skin to skin with both girls before I have), bath and feed Charli a bottle. They said she was doing really well and probably wouldn't have to stay long. I sat in the hospital by myself mostly, my dad and brother visited quickly and my mum, nan and Paige visited late that afternoon. There was talk of me being transferred to Sydney, then there wasn't a ambulance to take time, then there wasn't a bed in the hospital, then there was and then they said I could get someone to drive me up, but stuff that I just had a cesarean I didn't want to sit in a car for 4 hrs, honestly it was a shit show. Looking back I wish I'd just gotten someone to drive me home to recover instead of being in hospital (I would have left Paige with my parents and just been home by myself), but we didn't know if Charli would be released home or transferred back to the hospital as a patient and if she was going to be admitted a patient I wanted to still be admitted also.
In terms of recovery, sitting by myself in the hospital was actually good for me because I had to move, I had no one to pass me my water or help me up to go to the toilet, I had to do it all myself. I've never had any pain after my cesarean except this time I had a pounding headache I believe from the stress because as soon as I was with Charli it was gone. I continued to hand express colostrum every 3 hours and had a stockpile by the time Charli came home.
Charli was doing really well, they ran heaps of tests and she was under 24 hr monitoring. They had taken a blood test and they said if this came back clear she would be able to go home soon. She was given 3 doses of antibiotics to help prevent an infection in her lungs. The next day around lunchtime the tests came back saying her white blood cells were high, but everything else was fine, she looked fine and was feeding great, they had no idea why her white blood cells were high. But knowing that the best place for her was with me, they allowed Josh to bring her home to me. He left Sydney at about 4:00 pm by himself to travel the 4hrs home with a newborn. He was (and still is) our rock, he didn't hesitate, wasn't concerned he just took on that roll of protector, stopping for feeds and nappy changes on the side of the road, bringing her home to me.
In the meantime mum came with nan and Paige and took me home, they helped me feed, bath and put Paige to bed before they left. I sat watching tv until Josh arrived home with Charli around 9:00 pm when she then had her first breastfeed.
Charli was great after this, she had to be checked and weighed every 2 days, there was some concern about her losing weight, but let's be real she just had a punctured lung and had been poked and prodded at and fed through a tube, not to mention my milk was taking a lot longer to come in, so Josh and I weren’t too worried. We decided to alternate feeding her boob and bottle until her weight came back up and until my milk came in. We found that she was so tired from her ordeal she would fall asleep after 5 min on the boob and detach. So I would then wake her by undressing her and give her a bottle which took less energy and got more nutrients into her. This lasted a couple of weeks until she was back on track.
Now she's 11 months and you wouldn't even know she had any issues. When she was about 2 weeks old I actually had the doctor in Sydney call me to see how she was going. The doctor said Charli looked healthy and was feeding well so she knew it was the right thing to send her home but the blood test still played on her mind and wanted to double check, the doctor still can't explain why her bloods were not right.
My first cuddle with Charli.
