Waters, watermelon and waiting.

Waters, watermelon and waiting

After leaving the hospital that day we went home and collapsed straight into bed. We both hid away from the world under the covers. And cried.
How do you even go about beginning to process this information. Being told it’s unlikely your baby will survive. Along with that, how do you carry on like everything is normal? The answer is because you have to. When you’re a parent you can’t be a sobbing mess, moping round the house. Well, of course you can, and as good as I know it is for your children to see you show your emotions, how are you supposed to display them when you are unable to comprehend them yourself?!

No, you get up, you dust yourself off, you find the strength within to throw some chicken nuggets and chips in the oven for tea, because even though the feeling of eating to you makes you want to vomit and even though almost everything in your life seems out of control, you still have someone else in your life to care for and to carry on for. You eat because you need your strength not only but the life growing inside you that needs everything he or she can get.

It was the summer holidays. A time I get to spend quality time with Alfie. Over the holidays we do anything and everything adventurous! Of course this year would have been more reserved, but I still wanted to go on adventures with him, even if it meant taking a backseat for this year. This wasn’t to be. I was too panic-stricken to even think about leaving the house! Too scared that something would happen as I’d been told over and over how much more susceptible I was to infection when I had no waters. Our family rallied round to care for Alfie and help him have a summer holiday while stayed at home and researched. I wasn’t prepared to sit back and let our baby pass away without a fight and it seemed the baby felt this way too. I still felt movements and kicks throughout the day. While I searched for similar situations on the internet. I found things on forums, hospital papers with official statistics on, I read them all. I needed to know what our chances were.

I read their advice and suggestions. I needed to drink plenty of water throughout the day and put myself on some form of bed rest. I also needed watermelon and coconut water because it contained electrolytes and this meant it was likely to stay in the body longer than water. I wasn’t told this by the hospital because their view was just to let the inevitable happen. And in their professional opinion it makes sense, but as a mother, they have absolutely no clue how much you are prepared to fight for your baby!
This was my plan and this was what I did. For that next week I barely moved off the sofa, I drank as much water as possible along with coconut water and I lived on fruit. My mum brought a constant supply of this in to me. I watched Lorraine, Jeremy Kyle and recorded episodes of countryside 999! All the while Day had to carry on going to work and we had to carry on with some form of normality (ha, normality, oh how that word would come to be stretched and morphed into all sorts of shapes over the coming months!!) for Alfie and for our own sanity. However, just how he did this I really don’t know. I couldn’t face seeing a single person.

I text my friends, the ones who became worried as they hadn’t heard from us about our 20 week scan that they knew was happening. They knew I didn’t want to see anyone so left magazines, chocolate and other goodies on my front door step and text me to let me know they were there. What an incredibly lucky human I am to have friends like these.

Every night that week I lay there each night, not wanting to cry, wanting to preserve every ounce of fluid inside me, praying that it would find it’s way to the place it was needed the most and stay there, surrounding the baby and keeping him/her safe. Instead of crying I visualised the baby happy and smiling floating around in more fluid than he/she or I could ever imagine.

A week later, we returned to the hospital. We felt hopeful, like some miracle had happened! Our baby had made it further than all the doctors had believed. Once again we found ourselves outside the scan room waiting to be invited in. This time i felt no excitement at all, although nerves as well as hope were present. As I lay down on the bed I imagined once again the baby warm and happy, swimming in the oceans of fluid that would be miraculously discovered where they needed to be. I closed my eyes and said one last silent prayer to anyone who would listen as I squeezed Day’s hand as tight as I could. The scanner touched my stomach I waited for the audible gasps of happiness… I waited and waited some more. They never came. So I opened my eyes to find the same black and white fuzzy picture on the screen that we had seen a week previously. I don’t even know what I felt. Too many emotions to explain all at once, disappointment, anger, hopelessness, heartbreak.

The scan continued, and if it couldn’t possibly get there, the news was even more bleak than before. My waters had gone from one 2cm pocket, to absolutely 0 measurable. This time there was only one kidney visible and it looked to have fluid outside of it, although the baby’s bladder was full.

Just a bit of history repeating, we were off upstairs to maternity again to be seen by our consultant. While we were waiting I was given lunch. I ate it. How, I do not know, but when there is someone else inside you depending on every mouthful you take and every bottle of water you guzzle, you have to! ‘Mr Doom and Gloom’ himself, as he was now known by us, arrived before too long. This time we were told that if what was to be seen on the scan was correct our baby had potters syndrome. He/she was unlikely to survive birth, if they did survive birth he/she would live minutes/hours and the whole time they would be gasping for breath due to their lungs being born dry as due to this condition they wouldn’t be able to produce any more amniotic fluid. We were to be referred to Liverpool in the next week to be seen by specialists. It was likely that I would be offered a termination for medical reasons.

This time I howled.

We both sobbed uncontrollably.

Our baby had been given a death sentence.

We drove home, in silence. Walked upstairs, and for the second time in 8 days retreated to bed

For the second time in 8 days, we got up out of bed, dusted ourselves off and made chicken nuggets and chips for tea for Alfie. All the while feeling those very same feelings we were unable to comprehend the previous week, except this time amplified by a thousand.

Baby’s cute little foot