The arrival of Griffin Timothy David Robertson

Okay so here is how the events unfolded to the arrival of my son and last baby Griffin at 30 weeks 1 day on the 18th November 2008.

We were due to have the much awaited scan at 3pm, time was dragging on, thankfully we were called at about 2.30pm. Shannon and I and mother in law were all there and very nervous. My ob started scanning and straight away you could see that the fluid was less again than it had been the week before. She then did the measurements of baby, he had grown but not as much as we had hoped, the most noticeable difference was his abdomen measurement. This hadn't changed at all and was sitting at only about 25th centile. This is one of the first things that change with growth restriction and the same thing had happened with Laci. She estimated his weight at was 1450grams, obviously hoping it was a little more.

The blood flow to baby was still good so that was a good thing, but this is not something we wanted to wait to see change.

Basically the ob said, 'it looks to me that your having a baby today'. of course shannon and I got all teary. She then talked to us more in detail about her findings, coupled with my ever increasing bp that was not proving easy to control. She said she wanted to go speak to the consultant paediatrician to discuss it and come back but for us to think about what we wanted to do. Whilst she was gone, we had a very diffciult time working out what to do, we felt that it shoudn't be our decision and we could see all the reasons for delivery but scared that delivery may not be the right decision..

The ob came back and basically said upon further discussion with the consultant paed it was decided that yes definately we shoud deliver. We should pull out now. My steroids for bub's lungs were current and it would only be a matter of days till we had to anyhow, lets not wait till things turned bad.

So with that I headed back to the ward. They wanted to get an IV in and take bloods to check everything. Well here began the difficulties!

I was very puffy and swollen in my feet, hands and face basically holding onto fluid everywhere. I had also been nil by mouth for 4 hours by this stage. The dr had 4 attempts at getting an iv in, but everytime he got it in my vein would collapse. They called the anaethetist and she had similar trouble but did get it in on her 2nd attempt. PHEW big relief.

Then it was the mad rush to get me showered and ready for theatre.

Arrived at theatre, scared would be he best word. Anaethetist decided she wanted a second iv just in case due to difficult veins. Thankfully she got that one in first go.

I had pre arranged for shannon to be with me for the epidural /spinal placement. A good things in hindsite as what was to come was not fun.

Serious difficulties in getting the epi in. The whole process lasted 45 minutes, was super traumatic and very painful. She would inject the local, pierce my back but for some reason just couldn't get it in, she said my epidural space was very deep and at the maximum (6cms) of the needle. At one stage she hit a nerve and I had a very painful electric shock feeling all down one leg, I was screaming and crying :( She later said that she had 6 attempts!

She finally got the epi in and it was decided to start. They did the ice test and I passed. My ob started cutting. About 3 minutes in I started feeling a sharp pain on the outer edge of her cutting, everyone was asking me a million questions about it trying to decide if it was just discomfort or pain, then all of a sudden there was pain! I'm talking pain! Deep sharp pain! I cried out and that was when my ob, said she was terribly sorry but I was going to have to go 'under'. I started crying, begging that shannon cold stay to watch his son being born but they said no.

I remember saying over and over to shannon that I was so sorry. He was crying too but telling me it was okay and and he loved me. He kissed me and left, they then put the mask over my face to breath in that lovely stuff as I was sobbing. I remember them pulling my neck back and that was it.

I woke in recovery 2 hours later in lots of pain. I remember asking if Griffin was ok, if he cried etc, did they know if he had been intubated. They said he did make some noise and that no he wasn't intubated that they knew of.

The pain was pretty intense, they had hooked up my pca button to the epidural and I was pushing it with no relief. They ended up giving me about 3 lots of bolus pain relief down my iv to settle my pain.

After about 30 mins they asked if I wanted Shannon to come down. I said yes only if Griffin ok. Shannon arrived shortly after. My first memory is that of Shannon walking in with the biggest smile on his face. It was at that moment I realised what had really happened! I had had a baby! He was just so proud and tears in his eyes. He had a couple of photo's. He said that Griffin weighed 1540grams and had lasted 45 minutes breathing on his own CPAP on.

I really wanted to be able to see Griffin but the staff said that the bed wouldn't fit in there :( This was pretty hard to deal with.

When they got me back to my room they said if after 4 hours I was able to get in a wheelchair that they could take me to the nursery. I don't think the midwives realised at that stage how major my surgery had been or how much pain I had been in as this was certainly not going to be possible.

Shannon told me that the ob had said that my surgery had been very complicated and that my uterus had ruptured, she assured Shannon that no permanent damage to other organs had occurred and she would talk to us more about it in the morning.

The time of Griffins birth was recorded at 6.54pm. I was back in the ward about 10.30pm.

Shannon left at about 11pm and headed to the nursery, he stayed there for a while, he texted me updates like Griffin's first wee :) Then Shannon headed home and got a few hours sleep.

My pain continued to increase over the next few hours, they had hooked me up the epidural for pain relief which in hindsite was pretty pointless considering I needed the general because the epi didn't work properly. So by 1am the midwife called aneathetist and organised a morphine pump to go through my iv. By 2am I was getting pain relief. I didn't sleep at all but pain was manageable.

So..

Next morning, ob comes in and talks about what happened once they got me under..

Basically as she cut to do the lower segment caesar my old classical scar (vertical cut) ruptured. Basically me uterus tore open in an upside down T cut. She said my uterus was so thin that it would no way have lasted to 36 weeks without rupturing on its own! So I feel blessed, that would have been catastrophic, don't even want to think about it!

So that was a big complication and took quite some time to repair. She said also as we expected that my adhesions and scar tissue were terrible, my bladder and bowel very much affected. She said it was a very challenging surgery and I was very lucky to have avoided any kind of bowel or bladder injury during it all.

So due to extenisve surgery she placed a drain.

So that's the events that unfolded for my son's Griffin's birth. I did confirm with my ob that she remembered to do my tubes, she confirmed, absolutely! So there closes the chapter of my life involving trying to conceive and pregnancy. Now to enjoy being a mum!

My recovery has been slow and painful, but more about that and my gorgeous son soon!