When keanna met eli
CW: This story involves a life-threatening disease.
The birth of my son Eli has been the easiest and most joyful part of my journey in motherhood, and I am grateful to share.
My pregnancy with Eli began just five short months after being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. I did all that I could to give him the best start in life, closely monitoring and tightly managing my blood glucose levels (BGLs) to avoid all things I was briefed could go wrong. I was OTT sometimes, waking up often at 3am to alarms blaring, saying my glucose was high, then jumping out of bed to exercise until it came back down, sometimes hours later. The lack of sleep, high anxiety, frequent specialist visits and scans, on top of unrelenting “morning sickness” (that didn’t stop until the day I gave birth), began to get on top of me. At about 35/6, I was crumbling with uncontrollable high BGLs, constant anxiety and sheer exhaustion. For the safety of myself and Eli, we were booked in for induction.
In the days before induction, I went for monitoring at the hospital every day. Each time, the staff started subtly preparing me for the likely outcome that my boy would need some extra supports, as he was coming early and would probably struggle to maintain his own BGLs. So when the big day came, I felt calm and ready for what might come our way.
My birth plan wasn’t really a birth plan at all. All I wanted was what was best for my boy, and the two words we let guide us were safe and informed. When the induction kicked off and medical interventions started rolling in, I wasn’t stressed. My induction was followed by eight hours of contractions, and though it was challenging and painful, in its own rite it was beautiful. I loved the waves of it, and that I could cope with my breath. But when the offer for an epidural came, deep down I knew I was going to need it in the end.
Another fours hours ticked by, and I hadn’t progressed very far even with drips turned up higher and higher. Eli was okay, and I was given the offer to keep going or move to a caesarean. From the moment I gave the green light, time flew. After 12 long hours in labour, in less than thirty minutes I was in surgery waiting to hear those first cries. All those months of hard work came crashing into me the moment I first saw my boy and said his name, where I knew in my bones I did the best I could to get him here safely.
Turns out, his head was obstructed and even if I had laboured for six hours more, it would have ended in surgery anyway. And much to everyone’s surprise, no special care or intervention was needed for Eli himself. He came out strong, a born fighter.
I got to enjoy this “happy ending” version of my pregnancy and birth journey for eight wonderful months, before it all came falling down.
For several weeks Eli had a developing wheeze, where I took him repeatedly to doctors and was told he had common illness after illness. Then, in a deeply tragic and traumatic experience involving a 000 call, finding a tumour, being flown to Sydney and landing in ICU where he collapsed, it came to light that Eli had been consumed by childhood cancer called neuroblastoma.
Neuroblastoma is a solid tumour cancer that develops from immature nerve cells in the nervous system. This cancer had spread in Eli from neck to pelvis, with the main tumour the size of a grapefruit in his tiny eight month old chest. This aggressive cancer nearly stole him from us before we even had a chance to stop it. And worst of all, he had this cancer before he was even born.
I carried my son while he had cancer. I will never shake that.
I’m grateful to say that following four rounds of intense chemotherapy, today Eli’s cancer has all disappeared save for a small tumour still in his chest. Like at birth, Eli has astonished everyone with his will to fight. He is a thriving little boy now, and I don’t think I could share my story if he was anything otherwise, because I’ve met many mums with kids still fighting cancer, and mums whose kids who lost their lives to it.
Childhood cancer has forever changed us and every aspect of our life, including how I think of and feel about my journey into motherhood. I often find myself displaced in the motherhood narrative, because my journey is woven with pain and heartbreak of cancer. All the long months I grew my son, to his birth, to his diagnosis and into today, his cancer sits in all of it. I am an oncology mum, and I’ll never get to know the mum I could have been otherwise.
15 February is International Childhood Cancer Day, and I’m hoping that by sharing how cancer has changed my pregnancy and birth story you’ll take a moment to learn more about childhood cancers. You can learn more at https://internationalchildhoodcancerday.org/
What do you wish you knew before birth?
I wish I knew how birth is just a chapter in your story. There is so much pressure placed on birth, but actually no matter what happens, time will keep moving along. It feels like everything at the time, but I wish I knew it was only a piece of the whole story.
If you could, would you do anything differently?
I wouldn’t change anything about Eli’s birth. It is still the most beautiful and “normal” part of my story, despite all the medical intervention.
What did your partner do that really helped during labour/birth?
Fed me and gave me water! He had jobs and knew what to do, and that helped me ask for help when I needed him.
What advice/honest truth would give a mama-to-be about birth?
Be here and now, and no matter how hard it gets, each moment in this journey is precious. One day you’ll look back, and you might see it through different lenses, but no matter what, this time you have right now is so special. Don’t sweat the small stuff