Edith: "What happened to newborn Charlie is hard to accept"

I was 36+4 weeks pregnant. For five hours I hadn't felt any movement from my baby in my womb. I felt nothing now. No hiccups, no kicks, no pushing or pulling. Absolutely nothing. Charlie was always an active baby. I was panicking. I felt that something was not right. At the hospital, it turned out his heartbeat wasn't fluctuating enough. Read that story here.

I have informed a few friends and family members by phone about what was going to happen

There we were, rushing towards the operating room. I was asked to hand over my phone to a nursing student so that we could have some photos. I didn't feel the epidural anesthesia at all. I experienced the time in the operating room in a real daze. I barely heard anything that was being said. I was so tired and lost in my own thoughts. I don't even remember what I was thinking then. Until my partner exclaimed: 'He's here!' Immediately, I heard him crying. 'What's his name?', someone asked. 'Charlie!', I shouted proudly. Only now did it start to dawn on me where I was and why. I didn't get to see my baby. They were busy with the initial care. I felt an urge to see him, to be able to look at him. My partner was allowed to look at the crib where about five people in yellow uniforms were standing around to save him. When I was all patched up, they also brought me over with the operating table. I couldn't see anything from where I was lying, but I didn't realize it. I started crying from the pain and fatigue and was taken away to the recovery.

Three doses of morphine and 1.5 hours later, I was taken to my room

They had promised to show us our baby when he was stable enough to be transported. The door opened and the midwife came in. “They will come to show you your son shortly, but I came to warn you that he has been anesthetized to protect his little brain. He will not move or respond. This way, you will be less shocked later on.” I was handed a slip of paper with the time, his weight, length, and head circumference on it.

A quarter of an hour later, the door swung open

A huge incubator was wheeled into the room. Right at the top, I saw a little baby. Our baby. Charlie. I couldn't see him very well because it was so high up. I asked if I could touch him for a moment. 'We don't have much time, but a brief caress is okay.' He was so soft, sweet, and beautiful. The neonatologist was kind. He explained everything well. 'Your son was bleeding in your womb. Presumably, there was a tear in your placenta, and through the umbilical cord, he was bleeding out. The hemoglobin level should be 14 in a baby, and in your child, it was only 4. We often see that babies in his situation respond very well to these treatments. The body sends the remaining blood to the brain, which is crucial, but sometimes babies don't do this. Then they can sustain brain damage from it. We have to be honest: When you arrived at the hospital, Charlie was not moving. He was limp and listless at birth. We don't have a good feeling about this, but we can only assess the situation after a few days. We're taking him now and will immediately perform a blood transfusion upon arrival. After that, he will be placed in a cooling pack to protect his brain and thus limit any potential brain damage. His little body will be cooled to 33.5 degrees Celsius for 72 hours.'

There rode Charlie

Gone. And we barely realized what had happened. My friend had asked if he could come along, but they said he wouldn't be able to contribute much now and wouldn't be able to see him well, as long as so many people were working on him. It wasn't until 24 hours later that I was finally brought to Charlie. I felt him kicking the whole ride in my belly... Phantom kicks? I cried. He looked like a little doll. Ice cold from the cooling and I couldn't see his face because of all the wires and cables. He had needles in his head to measure brain activity, ventilation in his nose, a feeding tube in his mouth, a urinary catheter, a cooling pack around his head and entire body. It should have been scary, but it wasn't. It still felt unreal. He didn't seem real. It didn't feel like I had given birth and it didn't feel like our baby.

The neonatologist was informed that we had arrived with our little son

He came by to explain. Last night and early this morning we had called to ask how everything had gone. He had tolerated the blood transfusion well and in the morning his hemoglobin levels were back to where they should be. “We have started cooling. We had to think a few things through properly and discussed it with the entire team, but everything went as we had envisioned. He will be cooled until Saturday evening and will have a brain scan on Tuesday. He will remain sedated until after the scan.” The nurse immediately suggested that we could massage Charlie with some lotion.

I was also allowed to lie on his big bed

They had done this especially because his condition was so critical and they didn't know how he would pull through. It had been a hellish week with many tears and few updates, as we really just had to wait for the crucial and decisive brain scan. He remained stable. Meanwhile, my milk production had started well and they could give him a bit of mother's milk through his feeding tube. I could do something for him after all. I was so proud.

We had many visitors, who were allowed to enter two at a time

Everyone found it scary to see him lying there with all the cables and wires. No one was allowed to touch him and that felt right. He was our baby, even though it didn't quite feel like it yet. He was really our baby, that's why we were allowed to lie with him and caress him.

After three days, they stopped the cooling

He was warmed up by 0.5°C per hour. It was so nice to walk from my room to him in the morning and feel warm feet. I cried. Now he was a real little baby. He was alive! After five days, my partner and I were allowed to hold him. For the hour and a half that he lay in my arms, I cried for an hour and a half. He was really a little baby, limp and helpless. Now and then a nurse would come to check if the ventilation was still properly in place, but I didn't move, so everything stayed put.

The week went by slowly

Tuesday, November 12th, was finally the day: The brain scan. Would our baby be healthy, or would our lives be completely turned upside down? The neonatology department called to tell us that Charlie was back and we could sit with him again. As we entered, we saw the treating neonatologist sitting at a computer with another doctor. I hoped they were already looking at the results, but I didn't dare to get my hopes up too much. Our baby was back, and that's what counted now. No matter how he would be or what the scan would reveal, we already felt so much unconditional love for that little helpless creature. Then the doctor came. My heart sank and a huge fear crept into my body as he approached. I wished I could run away, but at the same time, I didn't want to at all. 'Say it. Just say it,' I thought. 'I have just reviewed the images with my colleague neonatologist, and we both see no abnormalities in his brain. The radiologists have gone home, but tomorrow we will discuss these images with the entire team. I am certain that your Charlie is perfectly healthy and has not suffered any brain damage due to the blood loss. He fought through it! We will look again tomorrow, but you can go to sleep peacefully tonight. There was no abnormal image to be seen.'

Relief

We decided together to keep this news to ourselves until the day after when we definitively knew that everything was fine with our little boy. We wanted to enjoy this news by ourselves tonight and take a moment to recover from the chaos and euphoria of the past 7 days. That evening, the sleep medication was stopped and after seven long days, they let him wake up. This process could take a few days. After that, we spent another full week in the neonatal unit because he needed to gain strength. He drank well, didn't vomit, gained weight nicely, and after exactly two weeks in the hospital, he was allowed to come home with us.

We know that we really had a narrow escape

Despite everything, it remains difficult to accept this beginning of his little life. Many people are afraid of giving birth, but I didn't know that fear at all. I was so looking forward to it. Now I didn't feel like I had given birth, but rather that I had been operated on. Meanwhile, I can put it into perspective a bit better. Handing him over to visitors was a disaster at first. I had to hand him over so much to the nurses in the neonatology, and I had to leave him there every time. I kept seeing those images in front of me whenever visitors asked to hold him. I still prefer to have him on my lap myself, but eventually this will fade. Someday this will find its place.

EDITH