Birth story - Rachel and baby Avery

This pregnancy by far threw us some challenging curve balls. I had hyperemesis throughout my first and most of my second trimester and gestational diabetes from 14 weeks. As with my previous pregnancies, we opted for screening at our 12 week scan which we were shocked when it came back as a very high chance that our baby would have Down syndrome. I was so used to receiving the letter and so the phone call completely threw us. The midwife was super nice but was almost apologetic that she had to deliver the news to us. We were offered further testing if we wanted to know more. We did opt for the further screening because I am one of those people that just has to know exactly what is going on to be able to prepare for what is coming. Waiting for the results was a torturous week and the results confirmed that we were having a girl and that she has Down syndrome. It was a mix of emotions but as it didn’t change anything for us and we continued on our pregnancy with a lot more involvement from specialist doctors and a lot more appointments and scans.

During a routine growth scan at 35 weeks, the doctor detected a change in heart rhythm and in a split second it all got a bit crazy. It went from routine monitoring to all of a sudden, midwives were preparing me for surgery. I was at the appointment on my own and at that point I wasn’t really being spoken to just swabbed for COVID, prodded with a cannula and doctors talking off to the side. I do feel so grateful for the hypnobirthing course because normally I would just go along with it, but I just felt like I had entered unfamiliar territory and I didn’t want to start feeling panicked. I made eye contact with one of the doctors and asked him what was their proposed plan? That felt like a turning point because it seemed a lot calmer as the doctor took the time to explain how they were struggling to monitor our little wriggler and they were proposing an emergency c-section. She was fine for the moment, but with the irregular heart rhythm and lack of regular trace they were getting off the monitoring equipment, they felt that the safest option for baby was to deliver her as soon as possible. The doctor was very patient and we discussed a few other things, then he arranged for the post delivery doctors and team to come and speak with me one by one as they began prepping the operating theatre etc. for delivery.

I opted to be put fully to sleep for the C-section as a previous birth I had an epidural that left me with a spinal headache and I wasn’t really wanting that again on top of c-section recovery. I made sure to ask all the questions I had prior to preparing to go to theatre. I had been listening to meditations a lot and practicing breathing in preparation for giving birth and this really helped calm my nerves while I waited to be taken into theatre. When we got down there, the nurses and doctors just kept remarking on how calm I was. We had a slight issue with the anaesthetist who wanted to put the cannula in my hand, which from previous births, they struggle to do, so I did not want that. The assistant then came up with a solution which allowed for a perfect compromise during the operation. Before they put me to sleep they made sure they even had my phone so they could take pictures of my little one when she was born. I woke up to be greeted with a gorgeous little girl who was beyond chill and did not need the post delivery care that they had set up for her.

She was born with a hole in her heart which explained the irregular heart rhythm but it didn’t effect her enough to need to be in the special care unit. She was born at 35 weeks +1 day. It was not at all the birth that we had planned for but I could not have asked for a more positive experience. We are absolutely in love with our sweet girl!