I was so lucky to fall pregnant within the first month of trying. I had a straight forward great pregnancy with no morning sickness, just a really enjoyable experience.
I reached 35 weeks still feeling great but then also feeling my belly was quite small. Everyone I bumped into said, "oh wow your 35 weeks, you're tiny!"
I never really thought much into it until I had a scan at 36 weeks. When I was in my ultrasound, my baby measured very small at only 1.5 kilos. Of course, I jumped straight onto Google and read all these horrible things about why my baby was small. I blamed myself, thinking should I have eaten this or done that, my mind was racing. My OB was sent the results reassuring me saying some babies are just born slightly smaller than others.
Over the next three weeks, I was sent to weekly scans, and bub had only grown 250g within that time. Usually at that point in your pregnancy bub should grow 250g weekly. Something in my gut just told me something was wrong even though my placenta was showing it was working and blood flow was perfect. Along with my OB, I then made the decision to be induced at 39 weeks.
Fast forward to 39 weeks I arrived at the hospital, and we began the gel applying at 8 pm, and 4 am. By 11 am, my OB came to break my waters and told me I would be having my baby today naturally.
Only 5 minutes later, my babies heart rate had dropped. All of a sudden, my clothes were being ripped off, and my husband and OB were pushing me into the emergency room for an emergency caesarean.
The process of my emergency c-section was incredible. Our baby boy (whom we thought was a girl the entire pregnancy) was pulled out, held up for us to see him, cried once and then stopped.
Immediately both our hearts sunk, we knew something was wrong, and we could see in everyone's face around us that something was wrong. We then heard "code blue" called, meaning a medical emergency was happening our baby boy Sage was in cardiac arrest.
We were then immediately rushed out of the room and put into recovery, not knowing what was happening. We stayed in recovery for an hour with doctors coming in not being able to tell us if Sage had survived. We were both in tears, shaking, not even expecting this would ever happen.
It was then our OB came in to see us saying he had survived, we were very lucky to have him in our arms after he had stopped breathing. Our baby boy Sage weighed only 2kg, he was alive, but we had a road ahead of us.
My time is the hospital definitely wasn't what I had expected. I didn't get skin-to-skin contact when he was born. My baby was fed formula straight away due to weight which meant I could only express colostrum and not give to him myself as he was in the special care unit. He was unable to sleep with me in the hospital. He was fed antibiotics to fight infections and was just poked and prodded for so long. I was unable to cuddle him when I wanted to help him through this, but I am then very grateful for everything the nurses & doctors did to save my baby.
To this day, our baby boy is still only in the 5th percentile, with regular doctors visits, paediatrician visits to check his heart. For me, every day is a worry, will my baby grow properly? What did I do wrong? Will he stop breathing again?
I still do not know what happened that day or why my baby stopped growing. The unknown is a killer.
As a mum it is so important to know that going through trauma is not to be ignored, speaking to a health care professional has really saved me in knowing that all my thoughts are warranted and how I can manage these in becoming the best mum I can be.
