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Diary of a very happy mammy of 3 miracles

34K views 114 replies 1 participant last post by  Shamrock. 
#1 ·
I'm delighted to see that a parenting diary section has finally been set up here on FF.
I've been keeping treatment diaries for years (I started my first one in April 2011) and since I was finally successful on my 5th fresh cycle using donor embryos I have sometimes posted entries in my treatment diary about my little girl and subsequently my little boy but I always felt uncomfortable doing so encase I unintentionally upset someone reading the diaries who was still on the difficult journey without success. Now with this parenting diary I will be able to freely record milestones and the ups and downs of family life without worrying that I might cause hurt to someone reading.

For anyone interested here's a link to my latest treatment diary:
https://www.fertilityfriends.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=339766.0. I am currently waiting for AF so that I can begin a FET cycle to try for baby #3 !!
 
#27 ·
Tuesday 27th March 2018

P is 5 years 3 weeks old
R turns 4 years old today
22 Weeks 5 days Pregnant

Ok I will try to remember some of the things that happened since I last updated here:

P turned 5 years old on 7th March and today is Rs 4th birthday! On Saturday 10th March we had a joint birthday party for P and R at a play center. We had 21 children at it which included some of their friends from pre-school, a few of our friends children and some of their cousins that were of appropriate age for such a party. We were limited to a certain number of guests so we couldn’t invite all their friends from pre-school etc. I had originally booked it for the previous weekend but heavy snow meant we had to postpone it for a week. The kids had a great time and I throughly enjoyed it ...it was so much easier having it at a play center than trying to entertain 20+ children and their parents at home in bad weather. A woman I work with made lovely homemade birthday cakes for me. Ps was in the shape of a number 5 with Trolls on it and Rs was in the shape of a number 4 with hot wheels on it. When Rs cake came out and everyone was singing happy birthday to him he got stage fright and wouldn’t blow out his candles.  It was so cute. P of course had no problem at all with being the center of attention when her cake came out  :)

On Thursday 15th March at exactly 21 weeks pregnant I was driving to work and I saw a car ahead stopped in the middle of the road indicating to turn right into a housing estate so I slowed my car down preparing to stop as I wouldn’t have had room to go around the other car, as I slowed down I glanced in my rear view mirror and I could see a black car coming up behind me really fast and I knew it wasn’t slowing down and it was going to hit me  :eek: It all happened in seconds but next thing I heard and felt the full force of the impact and somehow my car ended up completely up on the lefthand footpath sideways. When it stopped I had my foot to the floor on the brake and my hands stuck to the steering wheel. Somehow out of complete luck there wasn’t anyone walking on that part of the footpath or any parked cars or lampposts etc there so I didn’t hit anybody/anything  :eek:

I was in complete shock and hyperventilating and crying. I was immediately most concerned for the baby although I knew my tummy hadn’t hit the steering wheel as my seatbelt had held me back. Luckily the airbag didn’t inflate so I wasn’t hit by that either. I was brought by ambulance to the maternity hospital I am attending and immediately given a scan where I saw and heard the baby’s heartbeat. I burst into tears again when I saw him on screen.

Someone at the accident scene had phoned DH so he arrived at the hospital. We had to wait for about 2 hours to see a consultant (Dr M my usual consultant was in theatre performing emergency c-sections) I had another scan which again thankfully showed our little mans heart beating away although he was very quiet movement wise...He was probably still recovering from the shock himself, I know I was  ::) I was discharged but told to come back immediately if any pain or bleeding which thankfully I haven’t had. I was given an appointment with Dr M the following Tuesday for another checkup and scan and thankfully all was still ok with the baby then.

I went to the gp the day after the accident and she referred me for physio as my neck, left shoulder and arm were stiff and sore. The gp also signed me off work for 2 weeks. . I’ve went to the Garda station to give a statement about what happened. The Garda asked me if I wanted to press charges against the driver that hit me but I decided not to as he seemed genuinely concerned for me at the accident scene, he accepted full responsibility for what happened and his insurance company paid for the €5k worth of damage to my car and all my expenses. I just feel lucky that our little boy is ok and I’m ok. It could have been a lot worse
 
#28 ·
Saturday 14th April 2018

P is 5 years 6 weeks old
R is 4 years 3 weeks old
25 weeks 2 days pregnant

It’s 4 1/2 weeks since my car accident and I’m finally feeling ok again in the last day or two ...up to that my neck, shoulder and arm were aching and stiff because of soft tissue damage/whiplash. I was at the gp 3 times with it and I had to get 3 sessions of physio.  I am still signed off work by the gp but I am planning on going back to work this coming Monday.

Everything is going great with the pregnancy. I had a checkup and scan last Tuesday and everything looks perfect, thank God.

P and R are doing great too. I started R in Rugby Tots two weeks ago and he loves it. I am really proud of him because he is listening to the coaches and following instructions great. I am pleasantly surprised how well he has taken to it. When I brought him to it last week he told me it was "the funest day ever"  :)

P goes to ballet every Tuesday. I started her in it in Sept and she loves it too. Her teacher Miss OH has been teaching ballet for about 30 years and she is very eccentric/mad as a brush so the kids love her and do everything she asks...I've heard she can be strict when she needs to be. Every week the kids in the class sit around in a circle and one by one they tell what news they have ...I presume it is to build self confidence. I don't go to the classes with P so each week I ask her what news did she have for Miss OH and she always makes me laugh with the things she says. It usually involves something her brother R has done like he messed up her room or took one of her favourite dolls  :) Ahhh the innocence  :)

Like everything she tries her hand at P is very good at ballet. She loves dancing at home..at her request I often put on classical ballet music for her on YouTube on our kitchen tv and she does dance performances for us. She seems to really get into the music and go with it. She is amazing. I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up in the Royal London Ballet School someday  :)

So ballet and rugby are the only two classes I have P and R enrolled in. Because they are so young I believe free play is very important for them in conjunction with the structure they have at the classes. A small amount of strucure and lots of free time to play as they please is what I like for them at their age :)

They both have great imaginations and they love playing dress up so I have a small clothes rail in Ps room with lots of different dress up costumes on it. They play some kind of dress up everyday. I have some 'boy' costumes for R like a fireman outfit and power rangers outfit etc but he almost always bypasses them and dresses up in 'girls' things like his sister. I don't mind that at all. I encourage him dress up in whatever he wants and I help him put on the various dresses etc. Last night before bed he was a mermaid for a while, then he was a fairy granting wishes then he was a ballerina and P was his ballet teacher showing him the dance moves  ;D


 
#29 ·
Tuesday 29th May 2018

P is 5 years 2.5 months old
R is 4 years 2 months old
31 Weeks 5 Days Pregnant

We were on holidays in Spain for two weeks from 5th to 19th May and we had a brilliant time. I was 28 weeks pregnant going and 30 weeks pregnant coming back and thankfully I had absolutely no problems with the pregnancy even though I was a lot more active and did a lot more walking over there than I usually do here.

We were staying in a lovely wooden seaside bungalow on a very nice campsite. We had a beautiful view of the beach and the sea from our veranda :) The campsite was spotless with great facilities. There were 5 swimming pools, two of which were for for small children so we spent many days where P and R were in the pool playing and having fun for hours on end. They also had a kids club that they went to a couple of times where they played mini golf and did arts and crafts and dinosaur hunts etc. There was a mini disco every night which P loved but R refused to participate in :) R absolutely loved the beach and DH spent hours on end building sand castles and moats with him. P wasn't as keen on the beach so sometimes we had 'girl time' at the bungalow while the boys were at the beach. 'Girl time' as P called it was basically me and her relaxing and chatting :) There were 4 playgrounds, one really nice very well equipped one, one on the beach and two other smaller ones so of course we visited them all several times :)

The weather was perfect for us, it was 23 or 24 degrees most days and we had a few cloudy days which were perfect for visiting Portadventura theme park. We bought annual passes for it so we could go there any day we wanted so we went 5 times during the holiday. P and R loved it especially the shows and there were plenty of amusements and rides they could go on even though P is only about 1 mtr 5 and R is about 1 mtr 10. You had to be a certain height for the different rides. I think their favorites were the canoes and horses in the Wild West. R absolutely loved the Wild West show and he dressed up as a cow girl and put on his own show for us back at our bungalow a couple of times wearing one of my maternity tops as a dress ;D Ps favorite shows were the dance show in China and the Polynesia beach dancers :)

We had hired a car so we were able to get out and about whenever we wanted. We visited nearby Cambrils twice and also did a little road trip to a beautiful old church on top of a hill which was similar to the beautiful church in Sicily where we got married. P and R surprisingly loved the church and they loved the surrounding area because it had several little caves they could go into. We did another short road trip to a very unusual park with a lake full of turtles and huge fish. The park had a beautiful big house in it that was completely locked up with ivy and vines growing up the front steps and around the doors and windows. The house had turrets and towers and shutters on the windows so it looked like something out of a fairytale so we told P and R it was Sleeping Beauty's house and she was asleep inside it waiting for a handsome prince to come by to wake her up with a true loves kiss ::) I told R he should climb up the vines and into the house to kiss Sleeping Beauty but he wasn't too keen on the idea encase he met the wicked step mother on the way ;D There was also a very unusual looking tower in another part of the park which P and R were convinced was Rapunzel's tower. We climbed up steps in it to near the top but the very top of it was locked so they were sure poor Rapunzel must still be locked in there ::) Near the tower was a big cage with two huge parrots in it and P decided the witch that locked Rapunzel in the tower must have turned two kids into parrots and put them in a cage ::) You've got to love their vivid imaginations :)
The park was called Parc Sama if anyone is interested https://parcsama.es/parc-sama-eng/

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g580328-d2316369-Reviews-Parc_Sama-Cambrils_Baix_Camp_Costa_Dorada_Province_of_Tarragona_Catalonia.html

P and R had an absolute ball of a time on the holiday from the minute they woke up in the morning until they went to bed at night and they both slept like logs every night and were fast asleep within 5 minutes of their heads hitting the pillows :) We are planning on going back to the same campsite again next year and please God next time we will have our new little son with us to join in all the fun :)
 
#30 ·
Tuesday 12th June 2018

P is 5 Years, 3 Months Old
R is 4 Years 2.5 Months3 Old
33 Weeks 5 Days Pregnant

I am writing this propped up in a maternity hospital bed attached to a ctg machine which is currently doing a trace of the baby's heartbeat. I've been an in-patient here in hospital since Friday 1st June (with a brief overnight escape one night) but thankfully I am getting out today.

At home on the evening of Friday 1st June (32+1) I went to the loo and nearly died of fright when I realised there was fresh blood on my pantyliner but thankfully I had no pain. I rang the hospital and they told me to come straight in for assessment and to bring an overnight bag with me. I had another small bleed on the way to the hospital but thankfully it stopped then. I was admitted in and given a steroid injection to develop the baby's lungs. I was told I had to have more steroids exactly 24 hours later then I could go home on the Sunday morning as the baby was fine and I had no pain and no more bleeding.

I was given the 2nd steroid injection at 11pm Saturday night and at 11:45pm I went to the loo and there was more fresh red blood. I had light bleeding until about 8am Sunday morning (32 +3). From 8am onwards that day I had no more fresh bleeding just some brown/black spotting so I was allowed to go home on Monday. I was delighted to get home because I really missed P and R even though they had come to visit me on the Saturday.

The following morning on Tuesday 5th June (32+5) I woke up at 4:30am feeling wet and when I went to the loo there was a good bit of fresh red blood on my pantyliner again  :eek: I went back into hospital and I was re-admitted to the same ward I had left the day before. I had no pain and tests of the baby showed he was doing fine. This time I was told that I would have to have a full week without any bleeding at all before I would be allowed home again and today marks that full 7 days without a bleed so I am allowed home today  :)

I have been told that the bleeds were probably from the edge of the placenta so when I go home I am to get as much rest as humanly possible and if I see anymore blood I am to come straight back in and I won't be allowed out again until after the baby is born. If I have a large bleed with gushing blood I am to call an ambulance and get to the hospital as quickly as possible for an emergency c-section  :eek:

If I don't have any more bleeding I will be having a scheduled c-section on 5th July at 37 weeks. I was previously supposed to be having it on 19th July at 39 weeks.

I have gotten plenty of rest and tlc over the last 11 days here but I have missed P and R and DH fierce. I cannot wait to get home to them.

Fingers crossed for no more drama  ^pray^
 
#31 ·
Saturday 23rd June 2018

P is 5 Years 3 1/2 months old
R is 4 Years and almost 3 months old
35 Weeks 2 Days Pregnant

Thankfully no more bleeds since I was discharged from hospital on 12th June but I have shingles at the moment  :-\  I noticed an itchy rash on my back last Sunday which has gotten progressively more itchy, sore and painful. I went to my GP on Tuesday and he diagnosed shingles and prescribed Valtrex which is antiviral medication. Hopefully I won't suffer with this for much longer because it is awful. It is stopping me fully enjoying my last bit of time before the new baby comes as I am in constant pain and discomfort  :-\

From today there are only 12 sleeps to my scheduled c-section date of 5th July. I can't wait to meet my little boy but I also still don't feel ready  ::)

On Wednesday 20th June I brought P to visit the primary school she will be starting at on 30th August. The school had organised for parents and new junior infants to visit. P met her teacher Miss G and saw her classroom and where she will do sports and the yard she will be playing in. I got information about what workbooks she will need  and what I need to buy for her uniform. I can't believe my little girl is starting 'big' school .... It seems like only yesterday she was a helpless newborn  :)

 
#32 ·
Friday 6th July 2018

P is 5 years 4 months old
R is 4 years 3 1/2 months old
37 weeks 1 Day Pregnant

I've reached the hugely significant milestone of full term in this pregnancy :)

^milestone^ ^milestone^ ^milestone^ ^milestone^ ^milestone^ ^milestone^

A few weeks ago I really did not think I would get this far. Our little boy was originally supposed to be born on 19th July at 39 weeks, then after the bleeds I had his c-section date was brought forward to yesterday, 5th July but because of me developing shingles his birthdate is now set for 16th July as there was a risk of me developing meningitis if I got a spinal block anesthetic injection while I had an active shingles rash on my back :eek:

So if I hadn't gotten shingles I would have given birth yesterday :eek: I'm glad I didn't have him yesterday though because the longer he stays inside the more chance he has to grow bigger and stronger and the better it will be for his breathing when he is born meaning a lesser risk of him having to go to the special care baby unit or be in an incubator like R was when he was born.

I have to be admitted to the hospital for observation from next Monday 9th July and my c-section is scheduled for Monday 16th July so I will have a week in hospital on total bed rest before he is born. I am happy with the idea of having a good rest before he comes and being constantly monitored in hospital but I will really miss DH, P and R :-\

We have everything set up and ready to go for his arrival now :)
- We have a cot bed set up in Ps room and a cot set up downstairs both with baby monitors installed and a crib that can be moved around so he will have a multitude of sleeping options day and night :)

- I have tried out his car seat in the car on the isofix in the middle of P and Rs high back boosters and the 3 of them will fit in a row :) I have decided to put the baby in the middle of P and R in the car to hopefully prevent rows over who is going to sit beside him even though getting the baby in and out of the car might be slightly more awkward. (We bought a 7 seater people carrier last October with 3 full seats in the back) :)

- I have all his clothes washed and ready to go - most of which are clothes I bought or got as gifts for R when he was a newborn.

- I also have changing units set up both upstairs and downstairs and I have stocked up on nappies and wipes :)

- I have also bought all the attachments and inserts etc I will need for our Out and About buggy and a new bouncer for him to sit in :)

So I think I have all the practical stuff organized :)

I can't wait to meet our little boy now. I'm dying to see what he looks like. If he's anything like P was a newborn he will be super cute :) Please let him get here to us safely ^pray^

Update:
I'm in bed at the moment resting up coz our childminder is here and P came into me to ask if she could do maths on my iPad. I bought a maths game for her a few weeks ago because she loved the free trial of it we had. You should see her doing the maths....she is brilliant at it :) She can add and subtract and count and put items in order of size and in patterns etc :) She hasn't yet formally learned any of that kind of stuff in school but she just knows how to do it. There are 10 levels in the maths app and she has already totally mastered 8 of the levels and is in the middle of Level 9. I think she is extremely intelligent for her age :)

She is also very athletic - she's brilliant at any sports she has tried so far like ballet, rugby and football and can run really fast. She's naturally very competitive and wants to be first or best at everything without me or DH saying anything to encourage it :)

She is also absolutely beautiful with her big dark brown eyes and sallow skin and perfect features :)

She has it all really ::) I think Penny at Serum picked two great donors for us now all I have to is nurture all of her natural talents :)
 
#33 ·
Monday 16th July 2018 - 38 Weeks 4 Days Pregnant

P is 5 Years, 4 months Old
R is 4 Years, 3.5 months Old 
J is born 😊

BIRTH STORY:

Here is what I can remember about the birth of my son J who was born by elective cesarian section on 16th July 2018 at 38 weeks 4 days pregnant:

I was admitted into hospital an in-patient for one week before my c-section date for observation due to a couple of bleeds I had at 32 weeks pregnant and due to me comtracting shingles at 34 weeks pregnant.

On the morning of 16th July Dr M came to see me on the ward and she told me she had been given an afternoon slot in the theatre for my c-section and it would probably be about 2pm when I would be called up.

DH arrived from home about 10:30am and we passed the time while waiting by chatting amongst ourselves and to another woman on the ward.

During the morning my midwife went through a medical checklist with me and she checked my blood pressure etc and listened to the baby's heartbeat with a doppler.

About 1pm I was given some tablets to take which I was told were to nueteralize the acid in my tummy.

Just after 2pm the midwife came to tell us that they were ready for us in the theatre so I changed into a blue operating gown and I was given a small bottle of liquid to drink which tasted absolutely horrible.  We walked upstairs to the theatre area with the midwife. DH carried the small bag I had prepared for the baby containing a vest, babygro, nappy and hat.

The midwife from the ward handed us over to the theatre midwife who asked us to sit in a small waiting room. It was a different waiting room (much smaller) than where we waited before P and Rs sections. At this stage I was very excited and very nervous at the same time. I could feel my heart beating very fast and I felt a bit nauseous.

We were only left in the waiting room for about 5 minutes then the midwife came and asked us to sit on chairs in the corridor just outside the theatre. She gave DH green scrubs to put on over his clothes. Dr M passed by in her scrubs and said she would see us in theatre in a few minutes. My excitement/nervousness was through the roof at this stage.

Next the midwife came out again to bring me in to the theatre and asked DH to wait outside until they had me prepped. I gave DH a kiss and followed the midwife. The theatre she brought me into was different to one I gave birth to P and R in...it was much smaller.

I was asked to sit on the edge of the operating bed and I was introduced to the anesthetist who was a very nice Asian man. He explained how he would do the spinal block anesthetic and also told me that because I had recently had shingles that he would not be giving me the usual pain relief in with the spinal block as there was a risk it could reactivate the shingles virus and instead I would be connected to a morphine drip which I could control myself for pain relief immediately after the c-section.

Dr M came over to say hello and remarked that I looked like I wanted to run away  ...She wasn’t far wrong because nervousness had completely taken over excitement by then and I was terrified...I think it was just from being in a theatre wide awake seeing all the medical equipment and instruments and knowing you are just about to be cut open 

The anesthetist did the spinal block injection into my back which didn’t hurt but just stung a little. I was terrified that I hadn’t been given enough anesthetic because my legs just felt like they had pins and needles rather than being completely numb but he reassured me that the anesthetic was working perfectly on me. He sprayed very cold liquid on my arm which I could feel then sprayed it on my tummy and I couldn’t feel it.

Someone pinned a drape up in front of my face and Dr M said she was going to start the c-section. She asked if I could feel anything sharp and I said no. I could feel my heart beating a million beats a minute and I felt very nauseous. Someone put liquid into the cannula on the back of my hand which they said was for my blood pressure which must have gone really high.

Next thing I remember is DH coming in and sitting beside my head and I held his hand and squeezed it tight. I was told I would feel pulling and tugging sensations which I did. I got a terrible headache right across the front of my forehead and I think they ssid it was something got to do with my blood pressure either being too high or too low.

Then Dr M said "The head is born and the baby has a lovely head of dark hair"  Then they lowered the drape from the front of my face and DH and I saw Dr M lifting our little boy out of my tummy  It was amazing to see...an image I will never forget ...a life changing moment 

They brought baby J towards me to show him to me and I tried to put my arms out to take him but the nurse held my arms down. They told me after that I couldn't take him at that stage because the area below the drape was sterile and I couldn't touch it.

They cut the cord and brought J over to the side to weigh him and quickly clean him, I could hear him bawling crying and DH went over to watch what they were doing. Then they brought him back to me and put him inside my gown onto my chest for skin to skin. He was wearing just a nappy and a tiny blue knitted hat. It was amazing to finally have him on top of me snuggling into me 

After about 5 minutes of skin to skin the midwife said she needed to take J to the recovery room to put him into an incubator because he was grunting a little. They asked DH to go to the recovery room with them and they finished stitching me up then I was moved to the recovery room too.

J was born at 2:38pm. He weighed exactly 7lbs (3.180kg). His Apgar score at 1 minute was 9 and at 5 minutes was 10.

When I was brought into the recovery room J was in an incubator and my trolley bed was initially at the other end of the room but they moved me up beside him as soon as they moved another woman out of the room. When I came into the recovery room I could see DH down beside the incubator looking at J and he looked totally in love with him already. When they moved my bed up beside the incubator I could see that J was lying on his tummy and already moving his head around and looking around.

He only needed to be in the incubator for about 30 minutes then they took him out and immediately put him inside my hospital gown for skin to skin again.

Like DH I was immediately totally in love with him. He might not have our genetic material but he is 100% our son  :)
 
#34 ·
Thursday 26th July 2018

P is 5 Years 4.5 Months Old
R is 4 Years 4 Months Old
J is 10 Days Old

So much drama has happened to me in the last few days I hardly know where to begin with this update. I am writing this in the coronary intensive care unit of our local hospital where I have been an inpatient since Tuesday :eek:

I spent 5 nights in the maternity hospital after the c-section and J and I came home on Saturday 21st July. I was delighted to be getting home after spending 12 nights in total in the hospital. I had missed P and R and DH terribly and I was looking forward to finally starting to enjoy my maternity leave and to having J safely home with me. I felt fine leaving the maternity hospital..I was just sore where the c-section incision was and my feet were very bloated from fluid retention after the c-section which I was told was normal.

Our neighbours that we are friends with made a big fuss of Js homecoming and they had decorated the front of our house with blue balloons and banners to welcome him home.

We had a steady stream of visitors over the next few days and I thoroughly enjoyed showing J off and everyone who met him was smitten with his cuteness.

P was instantly brilliant with him..she was like a little mini mammy getting things for him, constantly kissing and cuddling him and declaring that we had gotten the cutest baby in the world :) R on the other hand didn't really take much notice of him but did share his teddies with him and give him a few kisses.

DH was a brilliant help as usual and offered to do all the night feeds for the first couple of nights so that I could recuperate as much as possible. We also still have our childminder T coming in to our house Monday to Friday to help with the kids so I was getting a lot of support and was not under too much pressure.

Now to the drama:

I felt fine coming home Saturday and slept ok on Saturday night with DH doing the night feeds. Sunday I also felt fine but on Sunday night I was very uncomfortable in bed. I felt a bit breathless and my tummy was sore at the c-section incision but also above it right up to under my boobs. On Monday I felt a bit breathless during the day and a lot more breathless that night while lying down and again my tummy was sore and I noticed my feet were still very swollen and my face was too.

On Tuesday morning when J was 8 days old the breathlessness was worse but I was trying to ignore it and just get on with things. I made an appointment to get my hair done because my grey roots were driving me mad. My appointment was for 12pm and the public health nurse had phoned me and arranged to call to our house at 2:30pm to do the usual checks they do on mothers and newborns when they are discharged from hospital.

As I'm not supposed to drive for 6 weeks after the c-section DH drove me into town for my hair appointment and I walked two minutes from where he dropped me off to the hairdressers and by the time I got there I was completely out at breath. While I was getting my hair done I texted DH and told him that I thought I needed to go to the doctors because of my breathing but that I would wait to see the public health nurse for her opinion. After my hair appointment I walked the two minutes back again to where DH was picking me up and I was really struggling to catch my breath and had to take huge gasps every minute. DH dropped me home just in time to meet the public health nurse and as soon as she heard my breathing she told me to ring the gps immediately for an appointment.

When I described my symptoms to the gp receptionist she told me to come in asap. DH drove me there and we had to bring J with us as our childminder was gone out with P and R. When we got to the gps I was immediately brought into a treatment room and seen by a nurse who checked my blood pressure and pulse and called the doctor in.
The doctor also checked my pulse and listened to my heart and put me on an oxygen mask and put in a cannula and attached a saline drip and then said he was going to phone an ambulance as my pulse was very weak (only around 35), my blood pressure was high and my breathing was very laboured.

The ambulance arrived in less than 10 minutes and they brought me to the local hospital with sirens wailing and blue lights flashing :eek: DH had to bring J home to our child minder who was back by then before he could follow me up to the hospital.

When I got to the hospital I was brought straight into the A&E resus area and immediately surrounded by doctors and nurses and attached to loads of monitors and I had another cannula put in and bloods taken.

The heart rate monitor I was attached to showed my heart rate was only 33bpm so they were concerned that I could have a blood clot from the c-section or my heart was just about to stop :eek: A normal heart rate is between 60 and 100bpm and even at that you would have to be very fit to have a heart rate of 60bpm. I was asked if I was an athlete and I said definitely not as I hadn't done any sort of exercise at all whilst I was pregnant and before that it was just mostly walking. They stuck big pads to my chest which I think were to use encase they needed to shock my heart back to life with a defibrillator :eek:

I was sent for a ct scan which ruled out a blood clot but showed I had some fluid on my lungs. It hurt like hell when the dye for the ct scan was pumped into the cannula in my hand :( As my heart rate was still very low a couple of hours after arriving at A&E (not rising above 40bpm) and they were concerned about my feet being very swollen I was admitted to the coronary intensive care unit. The unit only has 4 beds and there are at least 3 specalist nurses working in it 24 hours a day. While I was there I was attached to a heart rate monitor at all times and constantly had my blood pressure and oxygen levels checked. I was given diuretic tablets to reduce the swelling in my feet. (I was weighed twice a day in hospital and I lost 7lbs in 3 days from getting rid of excess fluid)

The first night I was there (Tues) I had blood taken at about 1am then I was woken by the nurse at about 4am because she wanted to do an ecg trace of my heart then she said she was going to call a doctor up to see me so the registrar I had seen earlier in A&E arrived at about 4:15am and he told me there were enzymes (Troponin 0.49 pro-BNP 825) raised in my blood that they would normally only see in someone who had heart failure :eek: ???

On Wednesday morning the consultant cardiologist Dr F came to see me and I was sent for a heart echo which is a detailed ultrasound scan of the heart. The sonographer took about 100 pictures of my heart from all angles. The scan showed my heart was slightly enlarged but appeared to be functioning fine albeit a bit sluggish :eek:

On Wednesday evening I was resting in bed after talking to my sister on the phone and I saw on the heart monitor that my heartrate was only 38bpm when suddenly I felt very tight in my chest and I couldn't catch my breath again. I couldn't speak to call the nurse so I raised my hand and luckily the nurse saw me and came over to me. Someone called for a doctor to come to see me and the nurse did an ecg trace of my heart. The registrar came to see me again and he examined me and reviewed the ecg and said he couldn't find a reason for the episode. I was given half a Xanax and I calmed down and my breathing went back to normal ???

Thursday morning the nurse told me that my heartrate had dropped to 35bpm during the night. The cardiologist Dr F came to see me again and told me that they were going to send me by cardiology ambulance to a different hospital in Dublin to have an angiogram (cardiac catheterization) done to check for blockages in the arteries of my heart :eek: DH came with me in the back of the ambulance and we had a heart specialist paramedic with us constantly checking my blood pressure etc and I was attached to a heart monitor. We drove at normal speed until we hit traffic then the ambulance driver put on the sirens and blue flashing lights again and we raced through the traffic.

At the Dublin hospital I was seen quickly and brought into what looked like an operating theatre for the angiogram. During an angiogram the cardiology doctors pass a tube into the artery in your wrist and it goes up your arm inside your artery into your heart and dye is injected into it to look at your arteries and inside your heart to check for blockages. If there are any blockages they can immediately put stents in to unblock them :eek: Thankfully my angiogram didn't show any blockages but it did show the muscles of my heart were slower than normal. The procedure itself wasn't the most pleasant thing I've ever had done but I was sedated so I was conscious but kind of out of it so not fully aware of what was happening. After the procedure I was kept in recovery for a while then the paramedics from the ambulance I was brought to Dublin in came back to bring me back to the locsl hospital. Poor DH was in waiting room all the time and he said he was very worried about me because it took so long.
 
#35 ·
Sunday 12th August 2018

P is 5 Years 5 Months Old
R is 4 Years 4.5 Months Old
J is 4 Weeks Old Tommorow

I was allowed home from hospital on Friday 27th July after spending 3 nights in the coronary intensive care unit (CCU). My heart rate was still low when I was discharged (I think around 45 to 50bpm) but they needed a bed in the unit for someone else,  all my tests had come back relatively good and I was getting very upset about being away from P, R and J. Children were unnderstandibly not allowed to visit the CCU because of the very ill patients in it so I had only seen them once on the Thursday evening when DH had brought them all into a waiting room beside the CCU for a few minutes to see me.

I was diagnosed with peripartum cardiomyopathy which is basically heart failure brought on by pregnancy. Dr Google says it is a very rare complication of pregnancy which most often occurs in the weeks after giving birth. The damage to your heart can be permanent or you can make a full recovery - I don’t know which category I fit into yet  ??? Future pregnancies need to be avoided because there is a 1 in 5 chance of maternal death if you become pregnant again and develop the heart problems again  :eek: So we definitely will never be going back to try again with our remaining frozen embryos!

Since coming home I've been taking it easy but still carrying on with normal family life as much as possible. I've felt a bit tight in my chest a few times which I've tried to ignore and thankfully I haven't been short of breath again. Mentally I'm still trying to process it all and be strong and just get on with things. I feel lucky to be alive so I just want to enjoy being a mammy. I feel like it's a bit of a wake up call for me not to take anything in life for granted.

I have a follow up appointment tommorow morning (13th August) with the cardiologist in our local hospital and I've also made an appointment for Monday 20th August to see a private consultant cardiologist in Dublin...I am paying for private health insurance for years so I want a second opinion from someone privately. I asked my gp to refer me to him.

Anyhow, baby J is doing great. He is totally oblivious to everything his mammy has been through in the last few months and he is thriving. When he was born he fitted into up to 7.5lbs babygros for about a week then I had him in up to 10lbs babygros and now in the last few days I have had to move him into 0-3 month old ones  :) I can literally see him growing!

He has been very alert since birth but in the last day or two he has become even more alert when he is awake and he can now make eye contact and look at things directly. He hasn't had a real smile yet but I've seen a few of his reflex smiles and they are adorable. I know babies don't start to give real smiles until they are between 6 and 8 weeks old so hopefully we don't have too much longer to wait for those  :)

We are bottle feeding him formula and he is now going 4 hours between feeds. At the moment he gets his last bottle around 10:30pm and we put him down in his cot around 11:15pm. He gets his next bottle at around 3am and then at around 7am. He sleeps great during the day and he comes alive in the evenings from about 7:30pm to bedtime and has to held and fed a good bit then.

P is absolutely brilliant with him. She kisses him and tells him she loves him constantly. She stands beside the changing unit and comforts him every time I change his nappy and gets me things I need. I have given her the job of picking out what J is going to wear every day and she loves that  :) She has been a bit difficult to manage and having mega melt downs in the last few days but it's hard to know if that's just normal threenager behaviour or related to Js arrival  ???

R didn't pay much attention to J in the beginning  but in the last few days he has been bonding with him by singing nursery rhymes to him and making him things. He now draws him pictures and makes him cards and things to play with  :) In the first two weeks after we brought J home R had a few wee accidents even though he has been fully toilet trained for a year which I presume was his way of protesting about the new member of the family and probably the upset of me being in hospital so much. Thankfully he is back to being completely dry again now.

We have brought J on a number of family days out since I came home from hospital and he has been absolutely no bother at all. I'm a lot more relaxed this time about going places with a newborn. We have been to two local festivals with him and yesterday we all spent the day out in a heritage park. I've also brought him on a lunch date to meet up with my friend G and I've brought him around all the shops in town.
 
#36 ·
Tuesday 21st August 2018

P is 5 Years 5 Months Old
R is 4 Years 4.5 Months Old
J is 5 Weeks, 1 Day Old

Day 2 of Js hospital stay

I’ve just had yet another hospital stay ...this time for baby J  :(. (I counted that up to today I’ve spent 27 nights in hospital since 1st June  :mad:)

Since J was about 3 weeks old he has been snoring at night...a different kind of snoring sound than an adult would make  ??? At first I thought it might have been caused by him having a blocked nose from a cold but I quickly realized he didn’t have a cold. Then I thought maybe it was just normal for some small babies to snore or make strange noises while asleep. Anyhow initially I wasn’t overly worried about it but the snoring noise got progressively louder over the course of 2 weeks and it was also happening while he was asleep during the day and then on Sunday evening I noticed he was making a funny noise while breathing while awake too even though he seemed to me to be breathing fine so yesterday morning (Monday) I made an appointment for him to see the gp about it.

The gp said it was stridor which is noisy breathing and that it needed to be investigated. She said I needed to bring J immediately to the paediatric unit in the local hospital and she wrote me a referral letter. (I had my appointment to see the private cardiologist in Dublin so I had to ring to postpone that to a later date)

Baby J was admitted into the hospital and I stayed overnight with him. I stayed beside his cot on the worlds most uncomfortable pull out chair bed.  J was attached to a heart rate and oxygen monitor and his oxygen levels kept dropping during the night and then going up again. With everything going on I got less than an hours broken sleep in total all night and I was absolutely exhausted. I was very worried about him that he might stop breathing or turn blue  :(

This morning a consultant came to examine J and said that he needs to be transferred to a children’s hospital in Dublin for tests to determine what is causing the stridor and dips in his oxygen levels. He said they will put a camera through his tiny nose and down his throat to see what is happening  :eek:

He will be transferred by ambulance to the Dublin hospital but there is no suitable bed available for him until tomorrow so he is staying in the local hospital again tonight. DH is staying with him tonight so that I can go home to P and R for a night before the logistical nightmare of trying to balance their needs and getting them minded as necessary and being in Dublin for J begins :(

Please let my baby be ok  ^pray^
 
#37 ·
Saturday 25th August 2018

J is 5 Weeks 5 Days Old
Day 6 of Js hospital stay

I'm awake at 6am crying and worrying and stressed out. I'm alone in the hospital parents accommodation with nobody to talk to. I think it's all just finally hit me. I'm worried about J and also upset about missing P and R and I don't know how we are going to manage everything when they start back to school next week and J will most probably still be here in hospital more than an hour drive away from home :(

Someone (a parent) has to stay with J all the time. I want to be here with him but I also want to be home with P and R especially for Ps big milestone of starting primary school. And if things weren't bad enough our child minder T who we have for the last 2 years has found out unexpectedly that she has to do something from 10th September and she can't work for us anymore. So we will have no child minder and we have absolutely no family help available to us so I don't even know how we are going to get the kids to and from school in Sept if J is still in hospital then :(

DH is trying to keep his job going and meet his work targets so he is under pressure trying to be here for J and me, trying to be at home for P and R and trying to manage work commitments so I don't want to burden him further by telling him how upset I am :-\

UPDATE
I suppose I should backtrack and try and record what's been going on the last few days:

Baby J spent Monday and Tues in our local hospital. I stayed overnight with him on Monday night and DH stayed with him on Tuesday night. On Wednesday we were told that a suitable bed was available for J in the children's hospital in Dublin. We were told it could take hours to arrange an ambulance transfer and the available bed could be gone by then so we opted to drive J ourselves. J was admitted to the Nazareth ward which seems to be mostly just for small babies.

On Wednesday evening J had a chest X-ray done and on Thursday morning he had a tiny camera put through his nose and down into his throat by the senior ENT consultant (Mr R) who then diagnosed that J has Laryngomalacia which is a congenital condition where the baby's larynx is not developed properly and it partially blocks the airways causing a noise when the baby exhales. The noisy breathing it causes is called stridor.

Since being admitted to hospital on Monday J has been connected to a machine to monitor his heartrate and oxygen levels and the machine is set to alarm if his oxygen levels fall below 90%. Anyhow the machine has been constantly beeping as his oxygen levels keep falling but luckily he is able to bring his levels back up again himself by taking a breath of air. I was told that he only needs to be given oxygen if the levels don't resolve by themselves ??? He has been given a small amount of oxygen twice so far.

On Thursday night the respiratory team did a sleep study on J where they attached him to a sensitive oxygen and heartrate monitor which was recording each time the oxygen levels fell by a certain % (desaturations). He was put on the monitor at nighttime because that is when he would have the longest spell of sleep and they needed to monitor him for at least 5 hours.

On Friday the senior consultant over the respiratory team (ROR) came to see us and told us that the sleep study had shown concerning results. Js oxygen levels had fallen on average 70 times an hour during the night :eek: She said that it is of course not good for a baby's development if their oxygen levels keep falling like that. If left untreated it could affect his brain development and heart :(

She said they wanted to do a more in-depth advanced sleep study on him to get more information so they did that last night (Friday night). J was attached to a number of different monitors. He had a strap across his chest, one across his abdomen, a probe on his nose and one on each foot. The monitors were attached to a computer and there was a camera recording video images of all all the movements he made. We were told it will take a technician 3 hours to analyze the information from it and it won't be done until Monday because there are no technicians available at the weekend.

On both Thursday and Friday a speech and language therapist came to watch how J drinks a bottle and a dietician came to talk to me about the volume of formula he should be drinking. He will be weighed regularly to make sure he is gaining weight well and they might organise more tests for next week to make sure his oxygen levels are ok while he is feeding.

I have been staying here at the hospital since Wednesday. Luckily I was able to get a single room in the parents accommodation which is located in the hospital. It is only €18 a night which is very cheap for Dublin and they provide cereal, bread, milk, tea/coffee etc so that you can make a basic breakfast. Some of the fast food companies and restaurants in the locality donate free food into the parents accommodation as a goodwill gesture for the parents of sick children so I've been able to make use of that sometimes. The nurses have kindly offered to do Js middle of the night feed so that I can go upstairs each night and get some rest which is absolutely brilliant. I usually go upstairs around midnight and come back down around 7am.
 
#38 ·
Sunday 26th August 2018

J is 5 weeks 6 days old
Day 7 of Js hospital stay

DH brought P and R to visit yesterday. It was lovely to see them but a hospital full of sick children isn’t the most ideal place to bring a very lively 5 and 4 year old as they need space to run free and be allowed to make noise so it was a bit challenging.

Today DH came to visit by himself so we were able to have a conversation and put a plan in place about how we will manage P starting primary school on Thursday and R starting back to pre-school on Wednesday. We have decided if J is still in hospital I will stay here with him tonight, Monday and Tuesday day and night. DH will get as much work as possible done in his office Monday and Tuesday and on Wednesday morning he will come up to the hospital and I will go home to sort out Ps school uniform and books etc and DH will stay with J Wednesday and Thursday day and night and I will be at home to bring P to school for her first two days.

I feel happier now we have a plan in place for the week coming at least and tomorrow we will know more about the doctors plan for J when we get the results of Friday nights sleep study.

J was weighed today and he is now 4.3kg (9lbs 8oz) ...a few days ago he was 4.2kg (9lbs 4 oz) so his weight is heading in the right direction. In the last two days he has increased the volume he is drinking to about 120mls at a time since one of the nurses advised me to use faster flow teats on his bottles.
 
#39 ·
Monday 27th August 2018

P is 5 years 5 1/2 months old
R is 4 years 5 months old today
J is 6 weeks old

Day 8 of Js hospital stay

Not good news today  :(  The consultant over the respiratory team came to see me and told me that J needs to have throat surgery because the advanced sleep study from Friday night showed that his oxygen levels are falling very frequently when he is asleep. I asked how many desaturations an hour J had Friday night and he said the lab was still analyzing the study because there was so many instances that it was taking them a long time to do it but he had seen enough from it to be very concerned. He said that putting J on an oxygen cpap machine at night would not be enough and that we basically have no choice but to have surgery on him. He said he would liaise with the ENT team about it.

A short while later the consultant over the ENT team and his registrar came to see me to tell me that they are going to do the surgery on Wednesday and asked me to sign consent forms :eek: The surgery is called supraglottoplasty.
 
#40 ·
Thurs 30th August 2018

J is 6 Weeks 3 Days Old
Day 11 of Js hospital stay

J had his throat surgery yesterday and the poor little mite is intensive care now.

The ENT surgeon said the surgery went fine but we won't know if it will be a success or not until all the swelling etc in Js throat goes down and he is recovered enough for them to be able to do another sleep study on him to monitor his oxygen levels. They have told us that he might still need to wear an oxygen mask when he is asleep even after having surgery but the surgery was absolutely necessary to try to unblock his airways.

After the surgery yesterday J was struggling to breathe on his own because his throat is very swollen and sore so he had to be intubated and put on a ventilator which was then doing all his breathing for him. We were told it was basically a life support machine  :-\ :'( He was also sedated and on a morphine pump to make sure he wasn't in any pain. It was absolutely heartbreaking to see him like that. I just wanted to hold him in my arms and cuddle him but I couldn't.

This morning they have started to reduce his dependence on the ventilator and later on they are going to try taking him off it to see how he will do breathing on his own. They told us they may need to intubate him again if he doesn't breathe well on his own. They are also going to slowly reduce his level of sedation and try feeding him through a tube to see how he gets on.

Yesterday when he was going in for the surgery myself and DH went down to the theatre area with him and the theatre nurse asked if we wanted her to take him into theatre or if one of us wanted to so I said I did. I was then allowed to carry him in my arms into the theatre and I met the anaethetist who explained how he was going to put J to sleep by putting a mask over his tiny face and pumping anesthetic medication into it. I was allowed to hold him until he went to sleep and then the nurses helped me to put him lying on the operating bed. It was awful but I'm glad I did it because I wanted my face to be the last thing he saw before the surgery. I was then ushered out of the theatre and brought back to where DH was waiting. J was gone from us for almost 4 hours before we were allowed into the intensive care unit to see him.

I drove home last night because P started in primary school today and I wanted to be there with her for the very important milestone in her life. DH stayed at the hospital with J.
 
#41 ·
Sunday 2nd September 2018

J is 6 Weeks 6 Days Old
Day 14 of Js hospital stay

J spent 2 nights in intensive care before he was moved back to the Nazareth ward. Thankfully he was able to be weaned off the ventilator and breathe on his own the day after the operation. They were also able to take him off the sedation medication.

He is back on the ward since Friday evening and the first night he was very unsettled because his throat is sore but they said they could not give him morphine anymore so he is just on paracetamol and clonadene pain killer now.

He is being fed through a tube in his nose every 3 hours. They started on very small amounts and slowly increased it and today he is up to taking 70mls every 3 hours. Thankfully he has been able to tolerate his feeds without getting sick - he is on reflux medication to prevent that. He is more settled since his feed amount has been increased. He has to be suctioned before each feed to get rid of mucus in his nose and throat.

The ENT surgeon has said that he is to be reviewed by the speech and language therapist and if she agrees they can try bottle feeding him again on Monday.

The surgeon also said that they will do another sleep study on him Monday or Tuesday night. I think from watching his oxygen monitor that he is not having as many oxygen drops (desaturations) as before his surgery but he gave me a bit of fright earlier today when he had about 5 desaturations in a row when he was in a deep sleep.

I was absolutely wrecked tired on Friday evening because I had driven up and down between the hospital and home 4 days in a row and it is over an hours drive each way. I had to go home on Tuesday to sort out Ps uniform and books etc for primary school. Then on Wednesday night after J was out of surgery and I had seen him in the intensive care unit I drove home again so that I would be at home to bring P to school for her first day on Thursday and to bring R to preschool (He started back Wed). I came back to the hospital Thurs evening to see J in intensive care then I drove home again on Thurs night to be home on Friday morning to bring P and R to school again and to collect them. I drove back to the hospital late Friday night and swopped over with DH and I've been here since then. I've still got my room in the parents accommodation.

It's lonely being here on my own. I really miss DH, P and R and normal family life.  A few people have said that I'm a strong woman because I haven't visibly fallen to pieces over all this but the truth is that I have secretly felt very overwhelmed many times and I have just wanted to climb into bed and hide under the duvet crying but much as I want to do that I can't... I have to carry on and be there for J, P, R and DH. I have to try and provide as much normality as possible at home for P and R, be as supportive as possible to DH so that he can keep his job going and be there to comfort J as much as I can. There is no room for falling to pieces  :-\

Even though we have been unlucky lately. I am counting my blessings that, please God, J will be well enough to go home soon. This is a hospital for sick children and I've gotten talking to a few different parents with very sad stories of children that may never leave the hospital alive  :'(
 
#42 ·
Update

Still Day 14 of Js hospital stay

One step forward two steps back :(
J was recovering great yesterday and he was very settled. This morning he was doing good too except for having developed a terrible barking cough and sounding very hoarse. During the day he started having quiet a few desaturations. At one stage I noticed he had a few desaturations in a row and he looked like he was struggling to breathe easily so the nurse looking after him called a doctor to come to examine him. The doctor said he was fine just sore but then about an hour later the same thing happened again with him having a number of desaturations together and working hard to breathe and his heart-rate was high so the nurse called for the doctor to come again.

This time the doctor put him on oxygen and did blood tests and organised for a chest X-ray to be done on him in his room using a mobile X-ray machine. The chest X-ray and blood tests came back clear for infection so they decided that his throat is very sore and he needs stronger pain medication. They have put him back on morphine, completly stopped his feeds and put him on an iv drip for fluids for the night :-\

They also called for the ENT registrar on call to come to examine him. While the registrar was in the middle of examining J there was drama on the ward because one of the babies in another room stopped breathing very briefly, an alarm sounded and every nurse and doctor on the ward ran like crazy to the room. Thankfully the baby was ok but everyone in the place including me got a fright :eek:

No-one has told me yet what the registrar recommended ???
 
#43 ·
Tuesday 4th September 2018

J is 7 Weeks 1 Day Old
Day 16 of Js hospital stay

I’m starting to getting really fed up of this place now but we are stuck here for a while yet  :-\

J now has a viral infection in his throat/nose so it has set his recovery back a bit. They restarted his tube (ng) feeds yesterday, he is still on oxygen through his nose and he was on the iv drip for fluids until tonight.

The speech and language therapist has been to see him a couple of times in the last few days and under her guidance and watchful eye I tried him today with his first bottle feed since the surgery but we had to stop after 30mls coz he was coughing and spluttering too much. We are going to try again tomorrow with a slower flow teat on the bottle.

The respiratory team consultant said that they have to wait for Js viral infection to clear up before they will do the repeat sleep study on him. So it is a lot of waiting...In here you have to have a lot of patience and take one day at a time. 

DH brought P and R to visit us yesterday. We went out for a carvery meal in a nearby pub while the nurses looked after J. It was really good to see the kids and DH...I’m missing them a lot.

I can’t hold J much at the moment because of all the different wires attached to him for various monitors and the iv drip and feeding equipment. I miss him too even though he’s right here. I miss just holding him and cuddling him the way I did before he ended up in hospital  :-\

It’s lonely here and I’ve had very few visitors...I suppose everyone is too busy with work and their own family commitments and the hospital is too far from home to make it easy to just pop in. I have made friends here with a really nice woman from Serbia named Alexandra. I got talking to her the first day we got here and we clicked. We've had plenty of chats and cups of coffee together since. Her little boy has similar issues to J and also had throat surgery. He has been an in-patient here since he was 5 days old and he's almost 3 months old now  :eek:
 
#44 ·
Wed 5th Sept 2018

J is 7 Weeks 2 Days Old
Day 17 of Js hospital stay

I was down in the dumps yesterday but I slept well last night and I woke up in much better form today.

J seemed much brighter today too so I think his viral infection is starting to clear up.

We tried another bottle feed with him today using a slow flow size one teat on the bottle but he only managed to take 10mls even though he seemed to be sucking like anything. He was exhausted after the effort of only taking that much and started coughing and sputtering again so we had to stop. The speech and language therapist said we need to wait now until he is completely off oxygen before we can try again  :-\

The respiratory team consultant also said today that they won't do a sleep study until J is completely off oxygen so there is a lot riding on him getting off it. If he can manage to go without it then it will be a big step nearer to going home.

This evening the nurse turned off the oxygen to see how J would get on without it and he did really well. She said he needed to stay above 94 on the oxygen monitor and he did it. He was mostly hovering around 97  :) Yesterday when they tried turning it off he was dropping to around 91 or 92 so today's levels are a good improvement. Fingers crossed he can keep it up overnight tonight  ^pray^

My friend G came to see me today and the nurses minded J while we went out to a coffee shop down the street from the hospital. It was really nice of her to make the effort to visit as she had to get a train and a bus to get here.

P started back to ballet yesterday and both P and R started in gymnastics this afternoon. I'm missing out on all the fun  :-\
 
#45 ·
Sunday 9th September 2018

P is 5 Years, 6 Months Old
R is 4 Years 5 1/2 Minths Old
J is 7 Weeks 6 Days Old

Day 21 of Js hospital stay

After my last post J had to be put back on oxygen during the night on Wednesday night because of desaturations. They left him on it all day Thurs and Thurs night and then tried turning it off again Friday morning. He was sent to the x-ray dept for a chest x-ray on Thurs and from that and because he was still very congested with mucus they decided that he still has the upper respiratory viral infection.

So Friday morning he did quiet well without the oxygen when he was awake but as soon as he fell asleep the oxygen monitor was beeping again as his oxygen levels were falling below 90 so the oxygen was turned on yet again. The respiratory team consultant said that it is taking J longer to recover from the surgery than expected.

On Friday evening the nurse noticed that J was working hard to breathe even with oxygen on so she called for the SHO who in turn called for a registrar to examine him. They increased his oxygen amount and did another chest X-ray ...this time in his room...they also did a blood test to check the carbon dioxide levels in his blood. The blood test showed his carbon dioxide was 8 when it should have been 5 or less so he was then attached to a high flo oxygen machine to give him extra support and they decided that he has broncholitis.

It will take J at least another few days to recover from the broncholitis/ upper respiratory infection and he can't try drinking a bottle or get a sleep study done until then so i think it will be at least another two weeks or more before he will be allowed home :-\

With J being in hospital and either myself or DH having to stay with him all the time the impact on our normal family life is really starting to take its toll on everyone now especially P and R.

Update 9:30pm
I'm back in the hospital now with J after being home with P and R since yesterday morning. DH came up here Friday evening as our friend E offered to take P and R to her house overnight. So myself and DH had a night together here Friday night then Saturday morning I drove home, spent one night at home in my own bed and I came back this evening and swoped over with DH so that he can go to work tomorrow.

I noticed when I was at home that R is really acting up and doing and saying naughty things deliberately. It's not like him at all to act that way so I know it is his way of reacting to the recent upheaval to our family life. Last night was the first night in over a week I was home so the poor little pet is all out of sorts. It breaks my heart that he is upset because he's such a sensitive kind hearted little boy :-\

P is also affected by everything, she didn't leave me out of her sight when I was at home (neither did R) and she told me she wants me, DH, her, R and J to be back together at home again. She asked a few times when will J be home and what are the doctors doing to make him better. She also asked me what do I do all day when I'm at the hospital and told me she misses me when I'm not at home :-\

I felt really sad driving back up to the hospital. I really want to be at home with P and R giving them all the love and attention they need and sorting out all the necessary practical household stuff but I have to be here for J :-\ Hopefully J will start to make big improvements soon ^pray^
 
#46 ·
Tues 11th Sept 2018

J is 8 Weeks 1 Day Old
Day 23 of Js hospital stay

Today was the first day that J managed to go from 9am to 9pm without oxygen support. He did have 4 or 5 fleeting desaturations during the 12 hours but that was really good compared to the previous days so I am happy that he is finally showing progress :) He still has the viral infection but I think it is finally starting to subside  :)

His oxygen had to be turned on again around 9pm because he had a couple of desaturations in a row when he was in a deep sleep. A nurse told me that it is common for that to happen with babies who have similar issues to J.  It usually takes them longer to kick the oxygen support at night.

I tried again to give him a bottle feed today with the speech and language therapist watching and again he only managed 30mls before we had to stop because he was coughing and sputtering and exhausted from the effort. We are going to try again on Thursday. They don't push him too much to drink the bottle encase some of the milk goes down the wrong way and into his lungs  :-\

Despite not getting bottles orally J is growing well and putting on weight because he is being ng tube fed 90mls every 3 hours. He was weighed yesterday and he is now 4.72kg (10lbs 6oz)  :) I had to move him into 3-6mths old babygros yesterday as the 0-3mths ones were gone too small on him! He is in Size 2 nappies  :)

The last few days about an hour or so after his feeds J keeps waking up bawling crying every few minutes. He wakes up bawling, I settle him down, he goes back to sleep, he wakes up bawling again..this happens over and over again until he is given paracetamol or clonadene :-\ So this evening the nurse said she thinks he has silent reflux which is very common in babies with laryngomalacia. He is already on ranitidene to help with reflux even though he hadn't shown signs of it up to now so she will ask the doctors to up his dosage of that tomorrow. Poor little pet  :-\

I finally went for my 6 week post natal check up with Dr M today. With everything going on with J I couldn't go two weeks ago when I was actually 6 weeks after delivery. Anyhow I spoke to Dr M about the postpartum cardiomyopathy episode I suffered (She was aware of it already because my local hospital had phoned her when I was an in-patient there). She advised I should keep my next appointment with the private cardiologist which is scheduled for 27th Sept. She checked my c-section scar and said it has healed up nicely. She also advised that even though we had needed IVF for Js pregnancy, myself and DH should use condoms when doing the deed if we are finished our family ???

I must admit I had a slight pang of wanting to be pregnant again when I was sitting in Dr Ms waiting room as I have so many happy memories of being there while pregnant with P, R and J but with everything misfortunate that has happened to myself and J in the last few months I know that we are definitely finished our family and when we get through this current tribulation I just want to concentrate on having a normal happy family life with DH and the 3 children we are so lucky to have.
 
#47 ·
Wednesday 12th Sept 2018

J is 8 Weeks 2 Days Old
Day 24 of Js hospital stay

Today was a big day for me and J  ???

The respiratory team consultant SJ came to see J this morning and while she was there J was asleep and his breathing was quite laboured which it often is when he's in a deep sleep. He had a noticeable tug indent in his chest and at his neck with every breath and you could hear his stridor.

The consultant examined J and said that she knows by looking at him, without having to do another sleep study on him, that he needs to be on a cpap machine when he is asleep at night  :-\

She said they would organise for J to start on the cpap tonight and that I need to learn how to use the machine and mask because he will have to wear it at night when we go home  :-\
She said that they will do a sleep study 6 to 8 weeks after he starts on cpap.

She also said that I need to be trained in how to do an ng tube feed, how to ensure the tube is in his tummy before the feed and how to insert the tube into his tiny nose down into his tummy  ???

She said the speech and language therapist will continue to work with me while J is in hospital to try to get J back drinking bottles orally but that I need to know how to do the ng feeds encase he still needs them when we are discharged.

About an hour later a woman arrived at Js room with a cpap machine and mask. She adjusted the mask to fit Js tiny head and  explained to me how the machine works, what we need to do with it every night and about cleaning it etc

During the day I started the ng feeding training...whenever J was getting his 3 hourly feeds the nurse showed me what to do so I now know how to check the ph in his tube to make sure it is in his tummy before the feed and I know how to give the feed. All of that is easy enough..it's learning how to insert the tube down into his tummy through his nose that I'm not looking forward to  ???

Tonight when he was settled after his 9pm feed the nurse put Js cpap mask on and turned on the machine. J was unsettled for just a minute or two then he fell asleep. Fingers crossed he does well with it tonight and doesn't need additional support from oxygen  ^pray^

 
#48 ·
Sunday 16th September 2018

J is 8 Weeks 6 Days Old (2 Mths Old Today)
Day 28 of Js hospital stay

J has really turned a corner in his recovery since I last posted  :)

He started on the cpap on Wednesday night and it went really well....He tolerated it fine and he didn't require extra oxygen support.

During the day on Thursday he was still having some desaturations while he was asleep especially when he was in a deep sleep so the consultant said that if we think he is going to have a long daytime nap we are to put the cpap on him.

So J has been on cpap at night and for some daytime naps since then and he is getting on well with it.

We have also made good progress with getting back to feeding him orally. Since Thursday we have started to give him some of his feed orally in a bottle and then put the remainder through the ng tube.

The speech and language therapist said we have to take it slowly with him so we are giving him about 40 or 50mls in his bottle and then putting the rest of the feed through the tube. He is on 7 feeds a day now and he is on 115mls at each feed. We have to take it slowly with him because their is a risk that milk could go down the wrong way into his airways and his lungs and he could develop a chest infection or pneumonia. Thankfully he has been tolerating the bottle feeds...There is some coughing at each feed but he is doing well.

I actually inserted Js ng tube myself today while being instructed by the nurse  :eek:  I was dreading doing it but it went fine even though poor little J was bawling. The tube goes up through his tiny nose down his throat and all the way down into his tummy  ??? I  have to be able to insert it 3 times under nurse supervision before J will be allowed to go home. DH is also learning how to do it and he will have to do it 3 times also.

J was weighed today and he is now 4.95kg (10lbs 15oz) so he is growing really well  :)

This weekend we had the best family weekend we have had since J went into hospital. On Friday I found out that we had been allocated a place in the Ronald McDonald house which is a purpose built house in the grounds of the hospital for the parents of sick children. You are allowed to bring your other children (not in hospital) to stay overnight with you in the house so that you can all be together as a family at the hospital. So DH brought P and R up with him on Friday evening and we were all finally together again sleeping under one roof with baby J only 5 minutes walk away in the hospital. The weather was really nice this weekend and we were able to bring P and R out to the beach for a couple of hours both on Saturday and today while the nurses looked after J. It really made a huge difference to my mental wellbeing to be able to be with all 3 of the kids. I had been starting to feel really down in the dumps about missing P and R and being torn between wanting/needing to be at home with them and wanting/needing to be with J.

I have been at the hospital since Friday last week - so 9 days in a row here - and this evening I am going home with P and R and DH is going to stay with J until Wednesday when I will come back to the hospital to swop over with him again. I will have 3 days of bringing P and R to/from school and DH is going to attempt to work from the hospital on his laptop and phone inbetween Js feeds and nappy changes  ???

We are hoping we will be allowed to go home towards the end of this week. J will be wearing a cpap mask at night and during long daytime naps and some of his feed will probably be still going through the ng tube but at least we will all be finally at home together again.
 
#49 ·
Wednesday 19th Sept 2018

J is 9 Weeks 2 Days Old
Day 31 of Js hospital stay

I'm back at the hospital with J now after spending 3 nights at home with P and R. I came back this evening and swopped over with DH again. I had a lovely few days at home bringing P and R to and from school each day.

A lot of parents probably dislike the school runs but I relished every minute of them this week. After spending so long in the hospital it was so good to be able to do normal family stuff like listen to the kids stories of what they did in school, who they played with or sat beside etc etc, make school lunches and do Ps homework with her.

R is in preschool from 9am to 12pm and P is in junior infants in primary school from 9:20am to 2pm so it's all go. Each day I was up early to get us all breakfast and dressed.  We left the house at 8:45am I dropped R to the front door of his pre-school first then drove the 10 minutes out the countryside to Ps school. I walked her to the school yard and waited with her until her 2 new best friends came along and she held hands with them and skipped away to play until the bell would go for assembly. It was so cute to see her holding hands with them. I got home from Ps school about 9:30am and I had until 11:50am to myself to do housework until I had to go to collect R. Myself and R had from 12pm to 1:40pm to ourselves until we had to go to collect P.

Our childminder T is only able to work full days for us now on Thursdays and Fridays but she is willing to help out at other times if it fits in with her new venture. She minded P and R for me this evening while I drove to Dublin to swop over with DH.

Since coming back to the hospital I have inserted Js ng tube for the 2nd time under nurse supervision. It is quite difficult and stressful to do. Firstly you have to measure the required length of the tube by holding the tube from Js nostril to his ear and down to his chest bone then the middle of his tummy. At the moment he has a size 8 tube and it is measuring 27cm from his nose to his tummy. So you have to swaddle him tightly and stick the tube up into his nose and keep feeding it in until 27cms of tube has gone in. Then you have to hold the tube in place with one hand and aspirate it with a plastic syringe with the other hand to check the ph of the contents to see if it is acidic or not. If the litmus paper shows it's acidic then you know the tube is in his stomach and you then have to secure it to his face with sticky tape stuff so he can't pull it out of his nose  :eek: All the time you are doing this J is very upset and your own stomach is heaving but you know you just have to do it  :-\  Tonight I had to stick the tube in 4 times before I got it to pass in freely because I kept meeting resistance inside. It's the worst thing I've had to do to any of my children  :-\

J was weighed today and he is now 5.08kg (11lbs 3oz)
 
#50 ·
Saturday 22nd September 2018

J is 9 Weeks 5 Days Old

After spending 32 nights in hospital J was finally discharged yesterday  :)  :)  :)

I inserted Js ng tube for the 3rd time on Thursday (It went fine) so I got signed off by the nurses as being competent to do it.

On Friday before being discharged both myself and DH were given basic life-support training by the ward manager Liz. Using a dummy child she showed us what to do if an infant stops breathing and what to do if an infant is choking. It was good to learn about it...please God we will never have to use it  ^pray^

Before leaving we were also trained on how to use Js cpap machine and an engineer will call out to our house in the next few days to make sure we have it set up properly at home and to show us how to download the sd card from it onto a laptop to email to the respiratory team at the hospital.

The nurses have also arranged for our local public health nurse to call to see us early next week. She will weigh J regularly and hopefully provide support if we need it.


 
#51 ·
Thurs 27th Sept 2018

P is 5 Years 6.5 Mths Old
R turns 4 Years 6 Mths Old Today
J is 10 Weeks 3 Days Old

I'm writing this while sitting in the cardiology dept of a private medical centre. I've just had a consultation with a private cardiologist DM and he has sent me to have an ECG immediately after his consultation. I am to come back here for a heart echo on 17th October which is the soonest appointment I could get for that. I asked my gp to refer me to this private cardiologist after my heart health scare in July. I am hoping I will just get a few tests done and be given the all clear to forget about my stint in the coronary care unit. I'm sick to death of dealing with anything got to do with health issues but please God this will be the end of things.

Baby J is doing great. He was weighed by the public health nurse today and he is now 5.4kg (11bs 14oz)  :) He is doing really well on the oral feeds since he came home from hospital and in the last two days most of his feeds have been oral i.e. via the bottle and we have only used the ng tube at night when he is very tired or hooked up to the cpap machine. A few days ago I increased his feeds to 180mls because he seemed hungry. He is being fed every 4 hours and at night he has just started going about 6 hours without a feed. 

He is doing really good on the cpap machine too. After his 7pm bottle he stays up with us downstairs for a while then around 8pm or 8:30pm when he starts to get sleepy we put him in his cot upstairs (with sensor video monitor) and put the cpap mask on him. He doesn't cry when it goes on, I think he's just used to it now. It stays on him then until the morning around 6am. So he gets at least 9.5 hours on it. We were told by the respiratory consultant at the hospital that he needs to have at least 6 hours per night on the cpap and anything more than that is a bonus, so he gets bonus hours on it every night. I've only managed to put him on it for daytime naps once or twice because with family life he's not in a routine of set times for long daytime naps yet. I know the cpap is having the desired effect on him because he is bright and alert during the day and he is interacting well with us and looking around at everything going on  :)

P and R are getting on great too. P absolutely loves primary school. She loves her teacher and has made new friends. She is already learning to read and write. So far they are concentrating on the the letters c and a. They are learning reading by phonics and writing by tracing. The first letter they wrote was "c". She gets homework Mon to Thurs which is something like colouring or tracing or cutting things out. She is learning a lot about nature (at the moment it's all about hedgehogs) and her class goes on nature trails and they have outdoor picnics when the weather is nice which it has been for the last week or two.

As part of Ps homework she gets a book to bring home (she gets a new book each week) and either me or DH is supposed to read the book to her and explain things in it and answer any questions she has about the story etc. So we have started a new bedtime routine every night whereby at bedtime P and R change into their pyjamas and I sit on the couch with them. Me in the middle, P on my right, R on my left and J on my knee in the middle and I read the story with them  :)
 
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