When I found out I was pregnant with my first child I was so excited and couldn’t wait to be a mum. Everything seemed normal at first, lots of morning sickness, bad back and very tired. I went for my 20 week scan and was told I had a low lying placenta. Your placenta is the life support to your baby and is supposed to sit on the top part of your womb just under your breast bone. However mine was right at the bottom covering the exit for the baby to be born. I was told this was common at 20 weeks and it will move. So I tried not to worry but I knew in my heart that things weren’t going to be easy.
However my placenta didn’t move at all (placenta praevia) and I was told that I would have to have a c-section as my baby wouldn’t be able to be delivered normally. I carried on as normal working as Branch Manager going for scans every 2 weeks. Then at only 6 months pregnant, returning home from work one day I started to bleed. I was so scared, everyone knows you aren’t meant to bleed when pregnant so I rang the RVI straight way and they advised me to stay calm and see how I was in the morning. Over night I had bled even more so we rushed to the RVI hospital.
The drive from Hexham to Newcastle was the longest journey of my life. I couldn’t feel my baby move, had my baby died over night? Why wasn’t he moving? I held my belly all the way to hospital praying that everything was going to be okay. Once I arrived I insisted that I find out if my baby was okay. They did a heart trace of my baby and everything was fine, he was alive. I was then scanned to see what was happening.
After many hours I was told I was going to be taken to the ward just for 24 hours observation and see if the bleeding stops. I had never stayed in hospital before so I was worried but the women on the ward were lovely and my husband and family were so supportive. The first night in the ward was like being in “Prisoner In Cell Block H”. All the ladies on the ward piled into one room and we had such a laugh, boy was there some mad characters in there. The laughter helped me forget about what was really going on. And anyway I was only going to be in for one night, so it wasn’t an issue.
The next day I woke at 5am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I waited until the doctors came round at 9am to see what they had to say about the bleeding.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was going to have to stay in hospital until my baby was born and I was only 6 months pregnant. I had Placenta Praevia which meant if my cervix moved at all I could haemorrhage and bleed and because I had already bled it was a higher possibility. I stayed strong when they broke the news but when I went to ring my husband I couldn’t stop crying, some of the things that ran threw my head were. Is my baby going to be okay? I want to be at home with my husband and cats, This isn’t the way I planned to start my maternity I wanted to be sitting in the garden chilling out, I am going to be so bored, I can’t bare sharing a room with people and having no privacy and I really can’t eat the food they give you it’s rank.
After a long day I accepted very quickly that bed 10 was going to be my new bed-sit/home for the next 10 weeks and it was the best place for me and my baby. I was now classed as a lifer; it’s what everyone calls long term patients as a kind of joke. I started to write a long list of things that I wanted from home to make myself as comfy as possible. My quilt, pillow, plants, photos, a fan and mini fridge, well I might as well. We worked out that me being here was going to be expensive, I couldn’t believe I had to pay to watch TV it was £2.50 per day it worked out if I was here for 10 weeks it was going to cost me £175.00 just to watch the telly. Then all the parking costs for my hubby to visit.
Anyway the weeks pasted slowly and I met many different women in the wards, some I made great friends with some I couldn’t bare to share a room with them. I had so many visitors it really kept me going. My mum and dad were total stars and came in every lunchtime with a lovely food parcel as trust me when it’s 80 degrees outside you don’t want to be eating overcooked grisly meat with smash and crusty vegetables that have been sitting in a heater in the day room since 9am. Austen visited us every night after work and I had a string of family and friends popping in too say hi.
After 4 weeks stuck in the ward I was called for one of many scans to see how the baby was doing. During the scan I was told some amazing news my placenta had moved up and everything was fine. I was in shock and so, so excited. Everything had turned out okay and I could go home and plan a normal birth. I was told I should be able to go home and they will just prepare my discharge papers. I was over the moon I went back to the ward and started to pack. Then a mid-wife came and got me and said that my consultant just wanted to double check me and do an internal scan. So I thought nothing of it and headed for a scan.
While I was getting scanned the consultant was very quiet and then all he said was I am afraid you can’t go home your condition has changed and you have Vasa Praevia. I was told not much else apart from my baby was okay, small but okay.
I was gutted and very scared. What was Vasa Praevia? After asking many questions and wanting diagrams, the lot. I realised I had a very serious and rare condition. My placenta had split in two and the veins which was my babies oxygen and food supply where covering my cervix (the exit) my baby was also head down resting on the veins. This was very serious with a mortality rate of 95%. At any time without any pain the veins could snap with my babies’ hands pulling them or just too much movement. My baby would bleed to death in 4 minutes and me shortly after. I was also told that my baby could suffer brain damage as he could cut off his oxygen supply by resting on the veins. I was very frightened and for the first 4 nights I didn’t sleep as the bleed could happen in my sleep without even knowing about it. The midwives used to check on me a few times a night with a torch to check I was alright. I didn’t want to loose my baby I loved him so much already and just wanted to keep him safe. They could have taken my baby out early but had no guarantee he would survive so it was like a balancing act.
After 7 weeks past I went for another internal scan with my consultant and I was told my baby hadn’t grown for a month and they didn’t know why. I was worried sick and just prayed he was going to survive. The consultant made the decision to take him out the next day. I couldn’t believe it my baby was going to be born into the world.
I had many worries running through my head but I was just so pleased we hadn’t bled to death. However my worries weren’t over yet. Would our baby have brain damage, would I haemorrhage when in the operation, my friend on the ward two weeks before had a mass bleed and had 16 pints of blood pumped through her body to save her life, she had to have a full hysterectomy and was in intensive care on life support for 2 days. I was told they couldn’t rule out that I may have to have hysterectomy.
The next day we went down to theatre to have the c-section and my husband held my hand all the way threw and my parents paced up and down the corridor waiting to hear if we were all alright. At 12.06pm on 15th August 2006 my beautiful baby boy called Luca was born. He was 4lbs 6 and just perfect. I cried with relief that he was out safe and he was a healthy boy. We were the happiest parents in the world.
After the operation my consultant told me that because the veins were so huge that even if though we were in the ward if the veins had ruptured he wouldn’t have been able to save either of us.
We are both so lucky to be alive today. My consultant saved our lives by re-calling me back for an internal scan. I had the best senior consultant so I was very lucky, if he hadn’t done this we would have gone back home to Hexham and both died as we would not have made it to the RVI in time.
Luca is now 1 years old and is a very happy and healthy baby.
The scan I had only took 5 minutes and saved Luca's life and mine. 1 in 3500 isn’t that rare just think how many babies in the UK are born each year. That’s a lot of unnecessary deaths in the UK alone. I was the lucky one many women don’t get diagnosed with tragic results.
This diagnosis shouldn’t be down to luck that the condition is diagnosed or what hospital you are in, so please, please, please sign the UKVP raising awareness petition on the No 10 Downing Street web site to make the scan a normal procedure in the UK.
Please go to the website and sign the government petition. It takes 2 minutes to do and is very easy. Thank you for your support.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Vasa-Praevia/
Thanks for reading my story
Love
Suzy Le Carpentier