When heather met remy
Heather struggled with unexplained infertility for three years before their little miracle Remy came along.
She also suffers with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Ankylosing Spondylosis, which impacted her birth and pregnancy.
After a planned c-section (by a retiring doctor who was delivering his last baby after a 50 year career and approx 10,000 births) and not one…not two…but THREE PLACENTAS….Remy was brought into the world.
Heather tells her birth story in her own words…
We struggled with unexplained infertility for nearly 3 years before finally falling pregnant with our little miracle Remy (thank you Dr Nicole Sides).
As I suffer from a few auto immune conditions, I was referred to foetal medicine unit (FMU) at the Canberra Hospital. I started my first session with the unit at around 16 weeks. I found their care fantastic however a little daunting with the overload of information. Google became my best friend.
I loved that I got to have some additional scans and was able to see our little man more. At the 20 week anatomy scan it was discovered that I had 2 placentas.
As far as a pregnancy goes, I had a relatively smooth pregnancy, I only suffered from very minimal morning sickness. However whilst pregnant I am unable to take my regular medication so my ankylosing spondylosis did get worse.
It was decided between myself and the FMU team that it would not be safe to try and deliver naturally so a C-section was booked in at 39 weeks.
The morning of Remy’s birth had arrived. We very anxiously checked in to the hospital just before 6am. Once we checked in, we were informed that the doctor performing our C-section was retiring (Dr David Knight) and I was going to be his last ever procedure. They asked if it was ok to have a few extra people in the room which was totally fine with us. Dr Knight had delivered approx 10,000 babies throughout his 50 year career.
Long story short, the time had come for me to arrive in the operating theatre. I had the spinal block and was ready to get going.
I had Gestational Diabetes throughout my pregnancy so was warned Remy may come out very quiet and would likely need insulin. WELL, Remy came out screaming the place down, Brent and I looked at each other very shocked haha.
After I saw our little man, he was taken over for all of his checks with his dad. During this 2-3 minute period, I started experiencing extreme pain. I told one of my anaesthetist about the pain, they informed the other Dr’s and they stopped work. The pain continued to get worse so they performed a general anaesthetic. Remy and Brent were removed from the room in the safe hands of our head midwife.
I was terrified at this point. I didn’t know what was going on, I was in agonising pain and the anaesthetist were getting everything ready in a rush to put me under.
Next thing I knew, I was waking up (apologising to everyone) a few hours later in recovery.
Remy was born at 8:45am and I FINALLY held him in my arms approx 4 hours later.
Am I sad I wasn’t there for to experience the first few hours of my babies life? Yes.
Am I forever thankful I have an incredible partner that got to build his own little bond with our baby? You bet cha.
The next day I found out from the head midwife and Dr Knight that I actually had 3 placenta’s. During my procedure I had suffered a very large haemorrhage. To try and stop the fast bleeding Dr Knight had moved my uterus up on to my stomach and that is what we think was causing the pain.
The after care in the maternity ward of Canberra Women’s and Children’s Hospital was fantastic. I cannot fault them in the slightest. In particular a special thank you to Rama who was by our sides for the whole stay. Additionally the lactation nurse visited us 2 times as my milk did not come in. She was wonderful and offered so many tips and support.
Hilariously everyone joked about the noisy baby who was born via c-section.
He lived up to his noisy reputation on the first night, not sleeping longer than 30 minutes without screaming the place down. A few of the midwives even joked that if this is what night one was like, it will be interesting to see how he is on night two. (he was perfect night two)
We were finally allowed to go home and try to keep this little baby alive
Little did we know we would have the bushfires & smoke to deal with 2 weeks later…. Then the dreaded COVID.
Good luck mumma’s – you’re killing it xx
What do you wish you knew before birth?
Oh god a few things, Babies can drop a lot of weight after birth but that’s ok.
Be open to all things, nothing ever really goes to plan.
All dignity is gone once you have a baby, haha.
If you could, would you do anything differently?
DO NOT QUESTION YOURSELF!! Mothers instinct is a real thing.I was initially being very hard on myself about choosing to have the C-section.
After finding out I had 3 placentas (one hidden), The head midwife told me that if I had of tried to deliver naturally, during induction they likely would have nicked my hidden placenta, this could have resulted in myself bleeding out and possibly loosing remy (worst case).
After this I never questioned my choice again.
Another thing I would never do again – try to breast feed as long as I did. My milk never arrived. I tried everything including going on the medication to boost my supply. After TWELVE WEEKS of killing myself trying to pump, feed and mix feed we decided to go to all formula. It was the best thing I could have done. I was more rested, other people had a chance to feed and Remy was finally putting on a good amount of weight.
What did your partner do that really helped during labour/birth?
Look not trying to talk him up BUT, Brent was incredible. He was there with me after the spinal block was complete. As soon as I found out I was going to be having a general anaesthetic, Brent comforted me and assured me he would stay with Remy. He ended up having skin to skin and alone time with Rem for 4 hours before we were all reunited together as our little fam of 3.
We spent 6 nights in hospital and Brent was amazing (even after sleeping on a day bed every night).
What advice/honest truth would give a mama-to-be about birth?
All births are natural regardless of if they are vaginal or not. Don’t let anyone shame you for doing what is right for you and your baby. Also - fed is best, end of story.