Читать книгу Miles Apart - Annabel Bower - Страница 5

We started trying for a baby five months after we were married and were incredibly lucky to fall pregnant immediately. I knew how fortunate we were. I was thirty-five and Josh forty-one. Not old, but not exactly spring chickens. To say I was elated was an understatement. I was off the planet, over the moon. With the boys, I hadn’t told anyone until the traditional twelve weeks, but with this pregnancy, I couldn’t contain my joy. I started telling people as soon as we saw a heartbeat at nine weeks. By this stage my catering company, which had been reborn from my newly renovated kitchen, was going gangbusters. The catering orders were endless. I was worked off my feet, and had an average of three to five staff in the kitchen most days, to help with prep and events. With work and two energetic little boys, life was pretty hectic. (I’m exhausted just writing that!)

I’d ridden out the bad years and everything was finally coming together. I had a beautiful little family and another baby would be the icing on the cake. When I was pregnant with the boys, I’d never had any desire to find out if I was having a boy or a girl. But with this baby, I decided I’d love to know – just for something different. I had a new obstetrician, as the doctor who delivered the boys had retired. I felt optimistic, but also aware that late in my pregnancy with Ted, my placenta had started to fail in the final weeks and he had stopped growing. So I didn’t have rose-coloured glasses, nor the naivety I had blissfully enjoyed during my first pregnancy. I knew things could go wrong.

But perhaps it was our turn for a lucky break, I thought. Josh had been through a painful divorce and had tragically lost his father in a house fire a few months before we met. It was almost as though I imagined that each individual on earth is given a quota for pain and suffering – and, fingers crossed, we had already used up a good chunk of ours. Logically, I knew that life doesn’t work like that and we didn’t deserve any more or less than anyone else, of course. There is no way to safeguard yourself against random misfortune and tragedy. Some people cruise through life encountering few obstacles and very little heartache, others seem to face many harrowing events. It’s indiscriminate.

Towards the end of my pregnancy with Ted, I felt his movements slowing and told my obstetrician I was worried. After mentioning it again at my thirty-seven-week appointment, I was sent for a scan.

Ted had indeed stopped growing at least a week before the scan. His size and the condition of the placenta were indicative of intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), and I was booked into hospital to be induced the next day. I am forever grateful that I listened to my gut and insisted that things weren’t right. Had Ted been allowed to go to term, it is highly likely he would have been stillborn. I’m pleased to report that Ted has suffered no ongoing effects: he is one of the most energetic, crazy, funny kids around.

When I fell pregnant again, I was well aware there were risks involved. With my history of IUGR, I was considered a high-risk pregnancy. But none of this could dampen my elation. At about the ten-week mark, I completed an enormous catering job, a sit-down lunch for 150 guests. By the end of the event, I felt like I had completely overdone it. I was heading to Sydney the next day for a rare child-free holiday; Josh was to join me a few days after that. On the flight, I felt lethargic and out of sorts. I just couldn’t get comfortable, so I slouched in my seat, fell asleep and woke just before landing, feeling groggy and disoriented. I had booked lunch with girlfriends that day and dinner at my cousin’s house the following night and was doubting how I’d make it through either.

Sydney is a glorious destination: as the plane comes in to land you are treated to a magnificent bird’s-eye view of the harbour. Sydney’s spring weather compared to Adelaide’s is practically tropical, so even though I was feeling rotten, it was hard not to get excited about soaking it all in with Josh once he arrived. We planned to eat ourselves silly in Sydney restaurants, sleep in and totally unwind. Ignoring my fatigue, I was optimistic that after a quiet lunch with friends and an early night, I would feel like a million dollars. I told myself I was pregnant, exhausted and nothing more.

I woke up the next day still feeling terrible and again put my fatigue down to early pregnancy and working too much. I thought perhaps because I was finally on holiday, my body was taking a rare opportunity to rest and recover.

A day later, I was feeling even worse. I called the midwife at my obstetrician’s rooms. By now I was really worried that the pain I was in was not normal. A searing, persistent burning was increasing on my left side, both front and back. I’d never felt anything like it before. She said it was likely a sore back from working too much, reasoning that the pregnancy hormone relaxin can wreak havoc on our usual capabilities. She suggested rest.

Resting had zero effect, so I visited a local GP, who insisted I go to the local emergency department immediately. In the waiting room of the nearest hospital, I started feeling faint and was close to blacking out. My whole body shook violently and I was delirious with pain. I rang Josh to tell him to come straight to the hospital when his flight landed. I was admitted straight away, a drip inserted for fluids and pain relief. I had to keep reminding everyone taking care of me that I was pregnant, as it was suggested I have morphine injected directly into my stomach. Nothing else was fast or strong enough and I was deteriorating rapidly. I kept refusing, as I was sure it would be harmful to the baby, despite the fact that I was starting to go into shock from a severe kidney infection.

An e-coli bacteria in my bladder, rather than presenting as an UTI, had entered my kidneys and was spreading through my bloodstream. I underwent scans for gallbladder and kidney stones, as they tried to find some reason for my condition. Lying on the bed while the sonographer looked for possible causes, my heart was in my throat. I wanted to ask her to check if the baby was okay, but knew that this was not what the doctors in emergency had requested on the referral from. It was assumed that the baby wouldn’t survive. Josh came in, wheeling his suitcases, straight from the airport, as I was being transferred to the gynecological ward. I was still refusing injections of morphine and instead, without really realising what was happening, I was hooked up to some pretty hardcore antibiotics and pain relief medications intravenously. And then I passed out.

I woke up the next morning in tears, assuming I had lost the baby. By some miracle, despite what my body had just endured (a raging temperature, severe blood poisoning – which would have led to organ shutdown if untreated), my little baby was still bobbing about with a very strong heartbeat. I couldn’t believe it. The next three days were a blur of heavy pain and heavy medication. When I got back home to Adelaide, my obstetrician said she was very surprised to see me. Most pregnancies that encounter pyelonephritis don’t survive. Yet again, I felt like I had dodged a bullet. I was even more nervous than before and felt incredibly lucky to still be pregnant. I was well aware that this was no small miracle.

I cut back on work, cancelled a few upcoming catering events and tried very hard to take it easy. I was mindful of just how ill I’d been and didn’t want to risk anything. Soon after Sydney, we had our twelve-week nuchal translucency scan. When results are bad, you often sense it immediately. A subdued presence seems to fill the air and eye contact is broken. Josh and I were ushered into a private room connected to the clinic and told the supervising radiologist would be in to talk to us shortly. The delivery of bad news is often accompanied by a slight tilt of the head, a sympathetic smile and then the news itself, delivered clearly (often without great emotion), with polite pauses along the way that allow you to digest the information being shared.

Our scan and the blood tests showed a 1/60 chance of Down syndrome. Odds at my age were usually high, but not this high. We decided to have the Harmony test, a non-invasive prenatal blood test for common genetic conditions, including Down syndrome, the option below an amniocentesis. We would assess the situation from there. Josh and I had very different views on what we would do if the result came back positive, so shelved the conversation until we knew what we were dealing with. The results came back negative, there was nothing obvious to worry about except a low result on the Papp-A test (which measures levels of pregnancy-associated plasma protein A, one of several proteins produced by the placenta). Low levels are an early indicator of potential growth problems or issues with the placenta later in the pregnancy. I felt by now that any problems with this pregnancy were likely the result of my actions. I had clearly pushed myself far too hard, worked too much. I was convinced it was my fault. At this early stage, there was nothing they could do to monitor growth, so until about twenty-four weeks, when the baby would be viable, it would be a wait-and-see scenario.

For the next twelve weeks or so, we enjoyed a blissfully normal pregnancy. Then at twenty-seven weeks, a scan showed that the baby had stopped growing. We knew this could happen, but did not expect it so early in the pregnancy. We were being prepped to potentially deliver in the next week: at twenty-eight weeks’ gestation. I was given steroid shots to strengthen the baby’s underdeveloped lungs and counselled about may lie ahead, with a very small premature baby. Then our baby started growing again, much to the surprise of everyone – including our obstetrician. We held on for another seven weeks, having weekly scans to monitor the baby’s growth and the movement of blood to the baby via the umbilical cord. At thirty-five weeks, the baby’s growth declined at an alarming rate, then pretty much stopped altogether. I was given more steroids and booked into hospital to be induced immediately after they began to work.

Our little baby arrived on Easter Thursday. Josh’s first biological child and my first baby girl. She was a tiny two kilograms, very small, as she had stopped growing in-utero for about a month, in total in addition to being born a month early. Our precious little baby was whisked off to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) straight after delivery. I was overwhelmingly grateful that she was with us. The scans over the past seven weeks had been stressful: before each one, I was convinced that bad news lay ahead. That the placenta had failed, or that (at the absolute worst) our baby would have no heartbeat. At the start of each scan, I would hold my breath, shut my eyes and say a little prayer that the baby was still alive. I’d only allow myself to relax once I heard the baby’s heartbeat through the monitor. Permanently convinced that tragedy would strike at any moment, I was a nerve-wracked mess and wracked with nerves – not the best emotional state for heading into newborn territory.

Bonnie, our beautiful little cherub, spent four weeks in the NICU, graduating from a fully enclosed cot hooked up to a million wires, to an open cot. The last hurdle was the removal of her gastric feeding tube. It was a month like no other. I’d set my alarm for 6am to drive down to the hospital to give Bonnie her first feed, at first through the gastric tube. As time went on and she grew stronger, I simultaneously breastfed her. I’d meet with her doctor, express milk for later feeds, change her and wait for the next feed at 10 or 11am, after which I’d pump more milk to keep my supply up, and do any tiny task I was allowed, which helped me feel like I was mothering my baby. At about 2pm I’d set off to collect the boys from school and kindergarten, take them home, sort out dinner, pack their lunches for the next day and wait for Josh to get home. As soon as he did, I’d go back down to the hospital for 1–2 feeds, before getting home and crawling into bed. Overnight, I’d wake up to express breast milk … and then repeat it all the next day.

Leaving your baby behind in a NICU is incredibly hard. I cried and cried the first night I was discharged from hospital. I remember feeling so angry with people who said things like, Well at least you get to skip the night feeds and have some sleep. In reality, I was getting about the same amount of sleep as any newborn mother, without the joy of holding and cuddling my baby in my own home. Another unhelpful comment was, At least she will be in a good routine from being in hospital. Which was true, but not a worthy trade-off for the stress of seeing your baby attached to wires in a room full of strangers. It was tough, but as hard as it was, I had a baby to hold, feed and nurture. And I knew she would eventually be coming home with me.

After four exhausting weeks, I ended up having a fairly robust conversation with Bonnie’s pediatrician. I wanted to remove the gastric tube and to try to move her to breast and bottle feeds only. I felt the tube was delaying her progress, as she was always so full when fed through it. She never had had to cry out for a feed or learn what it felt like to be hungry. She was like a foie gras goose, always force-fed and full to the brim. Eventually, the paediatrician allowed that if after forty-eight hours of no tube feeds, she gained weight, we were free to go. We scraped in by fifteen grams at the final weigh-in. The NICU nurses said they had never seen anyone pack up and leave as quickly as I did. Having everyone home together was my absolute dream. The NICU is a strange, clinical setting; if it weren’t for the incredible nurses who work in this area, I’d say it was an utterly depressing place. The nurses who looked after Bonnie were brilliant women who made a tough time bearable.

After the complications of Bonnie’s pregnancy, we didn’t make the decision to have another baby lightly. We talked about it a lot and agreed it would be the cherry on top of our happiness. Josh has always felt like the boys are his own and sees them as no less ‘his’ than Bonnie is, so for him one more child was an indulgence, an added blessing. I wanted another baby for many reasons, one being that I’d always dreamed of having four children. I can’t really articulate why. Our household was already very busy and chaotic, but I loved it. Most of all, I absolutely loved seeing the kids together and witnessing their friendships. The boys had gradually increased the time they spent at their dad’s from three to five nights a fortnight by the time Bonnie was eighteen months old. This created a huge shift in the dynamic of our household every other week.

The adjustment from being little sister to two crazy, highly entertaining brothers to being an only child was a lot for Bonnie to handle. She missed her brothers and would crawl around the house searching for them. I knew how she felt. I have never gotten used to the boys leaving. Even years later, I still miss them when they’re at their dad’s. I wanted to give Bonnie one permanent sibling who’d always be there, and would be closer to her in age.

Around the time we gave serious consideration to trying again, I started having severe abdominal pain. A series of scans revealed that what had begun as a small follicular cyst had grown to an alarming size and I would have to have it removed by laparoscopic surgery. My overactive, disaster-oriented imagination went into overdrive. Signing the pre-surgery paperwork giving consent to removal of ovaries and or fallopian tubes – or a full hysterectomy if found to be necessary – I thought, Shit! This had better all turn out okay. I really want another baby and don’t think I’ll cope at all if the option is taken away from me.

Thankfully, the cyst burst of its own accord in the days prior to surgery and nothing alarming was found from the biopsy taken during the procedure. To give my body time to recover, we waited a few months before having my Mirena contraceptive removed and trying for other baby. By now I was thirty-seven and Josh was forty-three, so I was acutely aware that it might take longer to fall pregnant than last time. I cut back on coffee, pretty much stopped drinking alcohol and made a huge effort to look after myself. I really wanted this to happen and wanted nothing else to hinder my chances or delay our plan.

Just as I was about to give in and see a fertility specialist, I saw those two lines. I am not a patient person. When I decide to do something, I want it to happen immediately, if not yesterday. I was so relieved we had fallen pregnant; my impatience was starting to overshadow my daily thoughts. As excited and happy as I was, I also felt incredibly nervous. I felt like I was pushing my luck with this fourth baby, but tried hard to brush those thoughts aside. I told myself I was being ridiculous: everything would be fine.