April Klap

My scan showed that the umbilical cord for both girls was hanging off the side of their placentas (instead of in the middle), and Belle wasn't growing as well as Casey... My OB said it was rare for both umbilical cords to be marginal and I would need close monitoring.

Now I don't know if it was stress, or if this would have progressed like it did anyway, but my blood pressure started to elevate. I was medicated from about 24 weeks for high blood pressure.

At 27 weeks, Belle still hadn't grown as much and because of her placement her movements weren't as clear, but I was still certain that she wasn't moving as much as normal. So off I trundled to the hospital to have a check in. The midwife confirmed that both babies were ok.

However only 3 days later I left work to go to my routine appointment with my OB "see you in an hour or so" I said as I left. My OB was checking the blood flow for Belle and it was neither going in or out... It was time to be hospitalised... I was in tears, all I could manage was a text to my boss "I'm not coming back, I'll call when I can"

At 27+3 weeks started my daily routine of blood pressure monitoring every 4 hours, and CTG monitoring twice a day. And every second day was blood tests to check certain levels for preeclampsia. I'm not sure when I officially was diagnosed with PE but I remember my OB telling me that it was severe and border line HELLP syndrome. All the while there was little to no change with Belle (improvement or deterioration) and Casey was the strongest out of the three of us.

At 30+3 weeks my OB finally called it, she was surprised I'd made it that far, but Belle finally had deteriorated with blood flowing backwards. Both girls were born via emergency C-section and whisked away to humidi-cribs. Ben went with the babies down to the NPICU while I was to stay in the maternity recovery ward. After I was deemed that I'd be ok I was wheeled to the NPICU on the way to my room... I was nervous to see my babies, but with all the change in blood pressure I'd endured (high before my operation, and crashing down low after) I couldn't help but to throw up bedside, so my first visit was cut short. Little did I know I wasn't going to see them again for 2 days as my recovery was horrible, I was thankful that I had wonderful nurses and my husband caring for my babies while I wasn't able to. Day two a midwife said to me "we better start your pumping journey," I hadn't even thought about what my babies had been fed since they were born, this made me feel so guilty. But I did get to see my babies that day, they were so small and seemed so fragile, and with all the cords and tubes everywhere was very overwhelming. Both girls were on CPAP breathing support.

On night 3, any parents worst nightmare happened. My "wake up to pump" alarm woke me up and upon checking my phone I had missed calls from the NPICU. So I called back immediately to be told that it was found that Casey had a pneumothorax (collapsed lung) for which they put a tube in the side of her chest through a small incision - Casey has a scar for life from this important procedure that saved her life. This back step for Casey saw her on a ventilator for some days but after that she came off breathing support quicker than Isabelle. But by 5 weeks old they were both breathing on their own, but still being fed by a nasal gastric tube.

The next 5 weeks I tried so hard and long to get them to breast feed, but they couldn't get it, they would get tired after 10 sucks, so eventually we tried a bottle just to get more information to give the speech therapist that we went to see, she couldn't identify any reason why they weren't able to feed, just stamina to make it through. 

Finally at 10 weeks old (full term) they finally were deemed ready to go home, they had taken all feeds for a full day via bottle.

Man I was nervous taking them home, I'd had so much support over those first 10 weeks, how was I going to do all this by myself with Ben at work most of the time...

We saw lactation consultants and speech therapists to build supply and feeding techniques, but both girls were very slow weight gainers, and were below the charts until 18 months old. But things slowly improved once their food intake picked up.

They're still little, but they're healthy 6yos now and I couldn't be more proud of their journey.