Story #63 - Postpartum Pandemic Stories - Shannon, Perth (Scotland)
Erin was my second baby.
I was high-risk because my son, who turned one on March 1st, was born prematurely.
At 23 weeks and four days, I started bleeding and had cramps. I was nervous because of what had happened before, so I went to the hospital to get checked. They did a scan [ultrasound in the US] and kept me for the night. The whole time, the baby was okay. This was a week or two before the restrictions for COVID-19 were put in place. I went back home, and we celebrated my son's birthday. My partner when back to work, but the cramping never really disappeared, so I decided to stay with my mother, who lives in Edinburgh.
The hospital there is where I had my son. If anything had to happen, I knew I would feel more secure being already there. On the morning of the 5th, I woke up with an odd feeling, like I was going into labor. I went to the hospital, and after triage, they told me they'd keep me for a couple of nights. Nothing had changed, but given my history, we all wanted some peace of mind.
As soon as they admitted me to the antenatal ward, my water broke. They checked the baby, and they found the heartbeat right away. She was moving, but she was sideways. The danger with that position is for the placenta or the cord to come out first. We decided to keep her in there as long as possible, hoping she'd flip, and the water would regenerate. We even talked about me going back home eventually if the water remained clear. I stayed at the hospital for a couple of days, and my partner came straight away from Perth to stay with us.
During the following days, I kept having scans, and she kept being fine.
I woke up on the morning of the 8th with a contraction. It was the most pathetic contraction: five seconds, and I could have slept through it. But I called the midwife anyway. She checked the baby with a doppler but couldn't find the heartbeat at first because she had turned and was now breech. She left to get a scan instead and found it right away.
I was relieved, but within seconds, everything changed. The midwife pulled the emergency button, and people came rushing in: the umbilical cord had come out.
I've had surgery before, but this was the scariest thing I have ever experienced.
Within minutes I was rolled into an OR on my hands and knees. They put in the catheter and the breathing tube while I was still awake. Then they gave me the medicine, and I fell asleep. From the scan to the OR, it was maybe five minutes.
I woke up in recovery, and I remember feeling very sore. Because it went so fast, the surgeon didn't have time to cut me open vertically, so they did the incision horizontally—like a "normal" c-section—but across my whole body and not just above my pelvis.
The baby was alive.
We didn't know the sex, and we found out she was a girl.
My partner, who had been able to see her in the NICU when she was five hours old, said she looked like an Erin.
Our daughter was very very small but very very cute.
When I got to see her, she was stable. Pretty resilient for what she had gone through. But things started to go down pretty quickly.
Her blood pressure was unstable, so they had to give her medication for that. Then it was her lungs.
I'd been expressing milk, and they would send someone to let me know when I would need to come up. At some point, a doctor showed up and told us Erin wasn't doing very well. Her blood pressure was too low. He said that when the cord comes out, the first organ that is affected is the brain. It hadn't taken a long time to get her out, but it was enough to cause considerable damages because she was so tiny.
(Family photo)
She did not get better.
She was on three medications. They told us that if they needed to give her adrenaline, it would be our last chance to save her. Her brain turned out to be severely damaged. Her kidneys weren't working, and her heart was struggling, so it quickly became clear that she would need it. We waited an hour for the adrenaline to get inside her tiny body. The tube was so small.
My parents came during this time, and they got to meet her. I'm grateful for that because now, the hospital won't let anybody go in. I'm not even sure my partner would be allowed.
After my parents left, a consultant took us to another room, which is never a good sign. She said that although Erin was stable now, with all the medication she was on, she was likely to have a heart attack. If not now, before the next morning.
At the time, I was on so many drugs, and I could only see her 10 minutes at a time. So we decided that we would rather be there when she passed than leave her and be told that something went wrong and she had died alone.
They switched her meds for comfort instead of treatment, and we left for a minute to wash ourselves; we got dressed, brushed our teeth, put on nice clothes... and we came back to watch our baby die.
The hospital was amazing. There were five or six other babies in incubators, and they put up a screen around them so we would have privacy. They brought in sofas instead of the uncomfortable chairs, and they turned the morphine up so we could touch her because her skin was so, so sensitive. We were able to cuddle with her—my partner first, then me. I really wanted skin to skin, and I got to do it with my daughter. They took out her medication, then her tube. She had maybe two or three breaths, and then her heart stopped.
It was beautiful. It made us feel that we had done the right thing for her, who had a breathing tube down her throat, and for us, who didn't want to see her suffer longer.
We were transferred to another room to spend time with Erin. They have special rooms in the ICU just for that. It has a bathroom and a little fridge. They brought her to us on a cooling pad so she could stay longer. It was so, so lovely. They did the footprints and brought a big box with toiletries for her, bubble bath, and a blanket. We spent two days with her. We got to bathe her and cuddle, which was so appreciated.
We had to give her back eventually. There is so much a cooling pad can do.
We'd been spoken to about what would happen next. Someone from the NICU would take her to the morgue, and when I was discharged, we would make arrangements. They took her in a pram [stroller] to get her to the morgue, like a baby going for a walk. I felt so grateful for that, and I was coping much better than I am now just because of the way the staff dealt with it. They would come in and speak to her, saying she was so beautiful. It was really, really nice.
From the time she was born to when I was released, we had spent one week at the hospital. I also got an infection in my scars and had to be put on painkillers.
After I was discharged, I stayed with my mom, who was also caring for my son. The community midwives came to the house every day of the week. But during the weekend, I became so ill that they sent me right back to the hospital. I couldn't stand without fainting. They said that when I had the c-section, the surgeon might not have scooped out all the placenta, so I probably had retained products inside my uterus.
It was the beginning of the virus, so I had no visitors. I spent five days there, and I couldn't even take a walk in the ward. Two big clots came out. By the third day, my partner was allowed to visit, but I still couldn't have a scan because the imaging department didn't take anybody that wasn't emergency or COVID-19 related. We had to fight for three days to get it, and my midwife had to spend three hours on the phone with them. They confirmed I had retained product, but because I don't have a fever, I don't classify as an emergency. The hospital considered I was well enough and they sent me home with antibiotics for 20 days.
The procedure in these cases is usually a D&C [dialation and curetage] and classifies as an elected surgery. But because of the virus, we can't have surgery or scan unless it's an absolute necessity.
So we said goodbye to my parents and went back home to Perth.
(Family photo)
On Sunday night [March 22d] the prime minister announced the full lock-down of the country. We can get food every ten days and are allowed to go outside for exercise once a day. You can't visit friends, and you have to stay 2 meters apart from everyone.
I'm still having periods of major dizziness. Before I left Edinburgh, they told me to call my local hospital if I had any problems at all. I kept passing out, so I called the maternity nearby, but the lady wasn't listening. I told her I couldn't lift my head, but she told me just to keep drinking and eating.
We can't see anybody face to face. I tried to call the NHS 111*, but right now, there is over an hour of waiting time. Everything is about the virus.
Yesterday, I phoned my GP and left a message. I said that I understood there was grief on top of everything else, but I felt something wasn't right. I love my son so much, but right now, I truly have no interest in playing with him. Or being with him. I just want to sit in my room by myself and not think about anything else. I know something is happening like postpartum depression, and I can feel it getting worse.
The doctor called me back. Told me it was normal. Offered me sleeping pills. But I'm not a priority, and they're too busy to see anybody that isn't a priority. It might take weeks or months before I can speak to someone.
I understand the situation is unprecedented. It's a different and difficult time right now. But I also know that if that had happened three months ago, I would have been taken more seriously. I wouldn't have had intermittent care. Midwives usually come to see you every day for ten days after you have a baby, then every other day for three weeks. Not anymore. It makes me very scared for people who are going to have babies during this pandemic.
My neighbor had a baby a week ago, and she had to stay at the hospital because he had an infection. But her spouse wasn't allowed to be there when the baby was born or after. It's horrific. I know they'll end up coming home with a healthy baby. But it's still scary, and it leaves scars.
My husband is home with me. He's not a key worker, and he also gets six weeks of paternity leave. I get a year because she was born at more than 24 weeks.
It's nice that he doesn't have to focus on work right now. I'm so used to care for everyone else when he's gone that I feel a bit lost. We're all inside, living in a small house. We got two days left before we start yelling at each other!
It's a blessing to have maternity leave and universal healthcare because it means we don't have to think about the financial burden. It hasn't cost us any money as it is the case in many places in the world. Scotland also pays for the funeral and cremation of any child up to 18 years old. I'm very grateful I didn't have to google how much cremating my daughter would cost our family. It's a big weight lifted off my shoulders.
I have so many pictures of her. I am in a community group on IG for premature babies. Some parents had babies who passed, and they had mentioned how much they regretted not having many pictures taken. So I knew when she passed that all my energy would be spent taking pictures. I put her in different outfits. I think I have over a thousand images on my phone. The medical photographer also came. My son got to meet her very quickly, and we got photographs of them together—something for him to remember his sister. The hospital also gave him a memory box with a blanket and a teddy bear—a gift from her to him.
(Family photo)
I felt okay at the beginning because I was on autopilot, and everyone around me was so upset. I was also hyperaware that having a premature baby could happen because I was high-risk. It sort of made it "easier" because I had kind of planned for something terrible to happen. But now I'm home, and I have to go on with normal life. My one-year-old still needs to be fed, bum changed, cared for. I didn't prepare myself for this part to be so hard. In some way, I was more prepared for her death than to have to keep going.
I've been very open with friends and family. I put pictures of her on IG because that's all I have. With the whole virus, it feels a bit selfish to do it because everybody else has bigger things to deal with. I'm sometimes struggling to reach out because I know they're going through so much. My partner is amazing, but he's already looking after himself and my son. My son is from a previous relationship, so he lost not only his daughter but also his first child.
I completely understand that everyone everywhere is overwhelmed, and I'm nowhere as important as the rest of the world. But in this house, it's tough. Right now, mothers are also more likely to feel isolated and depressed, even if they had a healthy baby because of the current environment. More people will have mental health issues because of the pandemic.
There's nothing worse than feeling alone and hopeless after childbirth. And right now, it feels like there is nobody to help us.
*NHS is the publicly funded healthcare system in Scotland. The NHS 111 service is for urgent medical need, help, or advice for non-life-threatening situations.