Bikes up and running again! We have a garage to set it up..lets get them wheels spinning again! 

So, Heres my story......

When you have a baby, or find out you are expecting the joy you feel is incomparable. The excitement of the first scan, finding out if you're on team pink or team blue, buying those first little outfits. It's all a completely magical experience. But, towards the end of the 9 months the joy sometimes can take a turn, it can turn into worry. Now, we didn't have any real concerns at all really until it came to the day I went into labour. Everything seemed normal, my waters broke early Sunday evening, which is an experience and a half! And shortly after the contractions began. They were irregular from the start but incredibly painful. From the onset they were no more than 5-7 minutes apart and after repeated trips to the labour ward I was told I wasn't in active labour. (Even though I'm certain I was.) And so I tried to wait it out at home. By 3:00pm Monday afternoon I had had more than enough. The pain was unbearable and to be honest I was exhausted. We then proceeded to go to Day Care where meconium was found in what remained of my leaking waters and so I was taken straight to labour ward. I cannot fault their fast actions to relieve my pain and make me comfortable. Within minutes I had an epidural in place and Calcifer was being monitored closely. Looking back I didn't realise his heart rate was dropping dangerously low, but it's probably for the best or I would have been beside myself with worry! He had a monitored attached to his head (yes, while he was still in there.) and because my contractions were so irregular it was hard for them to monitor them, meaning the midwives simply had to feel for them with their hands when I said they were happening. I was set up with a hormone drip to help me dilate due to the slow progress and the danger to Calcifer and by 8:00pm I was fully dilated. I was too exhausted though, too tired to do anything myself. Turning in the bed for them to feel my contractions was hard enough, but it had been well over 24 hours since it all began.

We were taken in to theatre for a forceps delivery, or if need be a cesarean. I remember crying because I thought I'd be too heavy for them to lift onto the table but was kindly reassured and calmed down. Everything was going ok, with the help of Tasha my surgeon and the team of student and midwives I had all bases covered it seemed. I had to have a small cut made to get the forceps in, which I knew and was completely normal. At 23:23 on Monday evening Calcifer was delivered and placed on my tummy. He was then whisked away to be checked due the meconium and then Anton and Calcifer we told to wait outside while they stitched me up and I would be out in about 15 minutes....

How wrong could we have been? I was given the injection to help me deliver the placenta which quickly made me sick but I knew that I wasn't very good with drugs and this was a likely occurrence. Still everything to me was completely normal. Yes I had been cut,  but that was fine. What hadn't been realised was that I had torn and my womb had failed to contract after delivering a ruptured placenta. To put it simply, I was still pumping blood into my womb as if there was a baby still in there, but this having nowhere to go was just flowing out of my body. That combined with a fairly bad 2nd degree tear that needed repairing was a tricky combination. 

I was in and out of consciousness at this stage, but I remember everything. There was gauze being weighed covered in my blood to try and figure out how much I had lost, so many people in the room trying their best not to look concerned but I will never forget their faces of worry. Tasha my surgeon trying her best to stop the bleeding but my body not cooperating. Then another surgeon came and I remember the same serious look on his face trying to stop the bleeding. There was tannoys on the phones calling for help because of my major hemorrhage and I remember them trying to get hold of more blood to give me more transfusions. I was constantly being monitored. But there was so much blood, everywhere. I had lost over 2.5 litres.

4 Transfusions and 4 hours later I came out of theatre and at the time I didn't realise how poorly I really was. I was taken to the high dependency unit in intensive care where I had more doctors and nurses around me. I had blood bags hooked up to me, saline solutions, heart monitors, morphine, cups of potassium. You name it, I probably had it. I spent nearly 2 days in intensive care and there wasn't a minute where I wasn't being looked after. I still was oblivious to how unwell I was or the trauma I'd been through. But I was getting better thanks to the team up there.

By Wednesday I was allowed to join Anton and Calcifer on Kingsgate Ward. I was dangerously anemic, filled with fluid so my body had swollen and I couldn't walk. I didn't get out of bed until Thursday and even that was a struggle. We had some amazing people looking after us, and I was monitored so closely any little thing was nipped in the bud. We had amazing support from all the midwives as not only were we dealing with a newborn baby, who had to have antibiotics 3 times daily, there was also me. Completely drained of everything.

By Saturday, I was well enough to go home. As soon as i got through the front door I couldn't help but cry. I genuinely at one point didn't know if i would ever get to come home and I very nearly didn't. A few weeks passed and I was still struggling with pain so I asked to see my local doctor. Who told me everything was fine, I knew it wasn't. So I raided my phone and found Kerry, a midwifes number. Although we had been discharged by the midwives and weren't really under their care anymore I explained to Kerry what I thought was wrong and she arranged for a colleague to get me an appointment with the Gynecology department the very next day. I was right, I had a major infection and the wound had broken down. I was given antibiotics and although the infection went away, I still wasn't healing and the infection kept reoccurring due to this.

I eventually after many trips saw Dianne, a nurse in urogynecology who wasn't happy that I had been told it would "eventually heal" and got me an appointment with a surgeon called John Shervington.

He also agreed that I hadn't healed properly and had also received extreme damage and booked me in for surgery. To cut a long story short, my 30 minute operation turned into 3 hours due to the damage I had sustained inside. "The worst he'd seen" he said. But none the less I am 'fixed'.

I want to raise money for the people that saved my life. They literally had to put me back together again and without them looking after me in theatre I probably wouldn't be here today and there's a chance that Calcifer wouldn't be either. From the Midwives, the Day Care team, to Labour Ward, to the Surgeons and Theatre staff, The Intensive Care team, Vascular Access, Ultrasound for checking I didn't have blood clots in my swollen legs and the Gyneacology department and Diane, John and Tasha who 'fixed me up'. Without all these people I wouldn't be on track to being back to my normal self and definitely wouldn't have been able to get through it as well as i did. I owe them everything and if I could just raise some money to make their working lives easier and help provide the things they need to help them look after people like me that needed them most I will be very proud.

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