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Milly's Story
"My husband and I had decided to start trying for our second child in early 2011, surprisingly I became pregnant in October 2010..."
We were both really happy, our daughter had just turned one in August 2010, and we were excited to meet out new addition in June 2011.
It was a strange pregnancy from the beginning, I knew I was pregnant, but no tests would come up positive, so I went to the doctors and got a blood test, also negative. She said to go for one a week later to be sure, so I did and then forgot about it and resigned to the fact that I was wrong and not pregnant. That afternoon I got a call from my doctor telling me I was right and I was in fact pregnant, finally!!
I had a dating scan, saw a heartbeat. At 11 weeks I had some bleeding, I was devastated, I have had a previous miscarriage so was sure it was happening again, went for a scan all was fine. We went to the 12 weeks scan, all was fine. Things went on as normal and we were excited to find out if it was a boy or another girl, I was convinced it was going to be another girl. At 18 weeks pregnant I started feeling sick. Fevers, extreme fatigue – I got up in the morning, showered and needed a sleep straight away. My husband and midwife kept telling me that I was just pregnant and looking after a toddler that’s why I was so tired, I knew it was something more. We went for our next scan and found out it was another girl, everything was fine. I went to the doctors and got blood tests to find out what was wrong, they came back abnormal for my liver, and a few other things that my doctor said meant I had a virus and we just had to let it run its course. The next week I was still feeling ill so off I went back to the doctors as I was getting concerned about the baby, more blood tests.
A couple of days later I was feeling a lot better, I got a call from the doctors, she said that my blood test had shown up a couple of things – Cytomegalovirus and Toxoplasmosis, I asked what this meant for the baby. My doctor said she was going to ring our local hospital and discuss it with them, but she thought that as I was feeling better they wouldn’t even want to see me, little did she know!!
By that afternoon I had had a call from the hospital and asked to come in immediately, I called my husband and (LUCKILY) he came home from work to come with me so we (and our daughter) set off to the delivery suite at the hospital, we were met there by my midwife, I was beginning to realise how serious things were!
We were sat in a delivery room and basically told they did not know if I had toxo or CMV, if I had toxo I would need medication for the rest of my pregnancy and the first year of our babies life and if I had CMV I would probably be recommended to terminate my pregnancy as the outcome was so bad for these babies – I burst into tears. I was 20 weeks pregnant at this time and told I needed to start taking Spiramicyn straight away in case of toxo and had to wait for 6 weeks to have the amnio to see if my baby had contracted CMV. I said to the nurse surely at 26 weeks pregnant it would be too late to terminate, and she informed me in New Zealand you could terminate at any stage for medical reasons, this made me cry all over again.
Eventually Toxo was ruled out and it was confirmed I had CMV, the doctors thought I was at low risk for transferring it to my daughter because of the amount of weeks pregnant I was, but still in 6 weeks’ time the amnio showed a small amount of CMV in my amniotic fluid. We told the hospital we would not even consider termination unless the doctors could prove to us that it was not worth it for her to be born alive, that she would have no quality of life. All the scans to then had shown nothing wrong, I was having a scan at the hospital in the fetal medicine department every 2 weeks. Then when I was about 28 weeks pregnant they found that she had ascites, fluid on her abdomen, the doctor told me she had a 50% chance of pulling through and may not make it. We were devastated. They booked me in for an MRI when I was 30 weeks pregnant to see if any damage had been done to her brain and how the CMV was affecting her.
On the day of the MRI I was so nervous I was convinced we would be getting bad news. We had a scan and the ascites had decreased, then for the MRI results... They found nothing wrong with her brain! We were thrilled, the doctor told us she was getting better, that she had fought the infection and should not get sick again. He said that she could still have some problems with her hearing at birth and couldn’t guarantee there would not be other problems but it was all looking positive, I can’t describe how happy we were. They even started to talk about her being born and what would happen etc… something they had never talked about before as they obviously didn’t think that she would make it.
At 31 weeks pregnant I received a phone call from the hospital, telling me that the second opinion on the MRI had come back and could I come in first thing the next morning for an appointment. I knew this was going to be bad news, what else would it be? I lost it, cried and cried and thought I had actually had enough, and could not cope anymore; it was all too much, one thing after another!!
At the hospital we were told our daughter would be blind, deaf, have Cp, Seizures, never walk, talk etc...and to go home for the weekend and come in at 10.30am on Monday to let them know if we would like to terminate, Oh my gosh!
Then the day after our devastating news, Friday 29th April 2011, I went into labour! At 31 weeks pregnant, our daughter had made the decision for us! She was born at 8.15pm on Saturday 30th April weighing exactly 5lb and I had the natural birth I was told I was never allowed (another story completely). We told the doctors that we just wanted to let nature take its course as we were expecting her to be stillborn or die shortly after birth, she didn’t she was breathing on her own and seemed like a healthy baby, she was taken to the special care baby unit and the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her. It didn’t matter anymore anyway as we were completely in love with her.
Over the next two weeks the good news kept coming, she passed her hearing screen, her eyes looked good and to top it off they could find no abnormalities on her MRI! We were completely amazed! The doctors told us they do not expect her to have major problems, but her hearing and sight and development will be kept a close eye on. We now just have to wait and see what the future brings for out little Milly.
- Shared by her mother, Leah