Olivia is my first child and boy has my life been changed by her arrival. She was born in early November 3 day overdue. She weighed in at 9lb 3oz which came as a big surprise to everyone as I am only 5ft1 and the midwife had reassured me that she was going to be a 7-8lb baby! the bonus of a bigger baby is how robust she seemed, when I met the newborns of the parents at my NCT class their tiny babies seemed so fragile. Now at 24 weeks Olivia is actually the smallest of all the babies weighing in at 14lb 5oz. She obviously put on all her weight when she was in the womb so doesn't feel the need to put it on now!
I went into pregnancy with rose tinted glasses - how hard could it really be? Well I hated it! I was constantly feeling nauseous or being sick. I slept for England for most of the beginning of my pregnancy and just generally felt uncomfortable for the last trimester. I got so fed up with people telling me that I should enjoy it and they loved being pregnant. I now know that it does end (whilst going through it I thought would never end) and the end result is well worth it. I now also have a lot more sympathy for pregnant women. It can be very hard and I didn't have many of the issues some people do.
However I now find it hard to remember some of my issues with pregnancy and also the birth (this might have something to do with the gas and air and the pethidine!) My first night with O ended with her being taken to SCBU and me spending the night on a ward with lots of screaming babies and one mother who snored loudly throughout the whole night - I hope her baby didn't wake because she certainly didn't.
The hospital moved me the next day to the ward with all the expectant mums as O was still in special care. So rather than screaming babies I was listening to the heart beats being monitored, people having contractions etc. But this was miles better than babies crying and knowing that I couldn't hold mine. We spent a lot of the day in SCBU with O and they actively encouraged me to continue feeding her. At night they would ring my ward for me to go down and feed her. So cue me walking through the hospital in my nightclothes in the middle of the night.
Olivia was born with polycythema - which effectively means she had too much haemoglobin which thickened her blood making her heart work too hard to pump the blood round. She had very purple hands and feet and lips. So they removed 80ml of her blood and replaced it with saline solution. She was then put on antibiotics and also treated for jaundice. She seemed to enjoy sunbathing under the lights! After 36 hours she was allowed out of SCBU and back onto the ward with me - new ward with mothers and babies again. We were in hospital for 5 days during which time she was on antibiotics every 6 hours.
The most heart breaking bit of it all was watching the nurses trying to insert a cannula into your newborn baby and failing to do it. My poor baby looked like a pin cushion and was covered in bruises. Luckily she has no ongoing problems and we have been reassured that she shouldn't need any further treatment.
