Something I forgot to mention in the previous post was that before I was told to push, Donna asked Mum to hit the emergency button. That in itself produced another massive wave of fear. Seemingly out of nowhere, a room full of people just materialised and all hell broke loose!
When Jazz had been delivered, I laid back and cried, devastated. I didnt even have the presence of mind to look at my baby. As luck would have it, my membrane rupture had been a hindwater rupture, the sac had sealed itself up again at some stage, so Jazz was born in the intact sac with the placenta still attached to it. They had to use clippers to cut it open and get Jazz out.
Well before any of this, when I was given the big hit of steroids, I said that this baby would come out swinging due to roid rage from all the steroids I'd had, and according to mum, she did!! When I finally looked down, here was this almost unfathomably tiny baby, fists balled, face screwed up in rage, completely black!!! OMG, shes so ugly, was my first brief thought, followed by that sickening fear again because she was so very tiny! Later Paul would tell me that when he saw she was black he thought he was off the hook! lol
She was black for a few reasons, Id bled into the sac for 5 weeks, lack of oxygen and shed gotten stressed at some stage and did poo in the sac. Someone whisked her away to the heated flat bed, where I heard a tiny squeek. I looked over and just saw someone lift a tiny, red foot that was almost see through with some light behind it. I started crying again, how was something that small going to make it?
All of a sudden all the people and my prcious bub were whisked away, I told Paul he had to go with her, so he headed off. Flora stayed behind briefly and explained she would probably need a lot of oxygen and she was going to be a very sick little girl with a tough road ahead,. She said it would be an hour or so before we could see her as they had to get her stabilised.
When she left, I got cleaned up. Amazingly, those wonderful labour/birth hormones and adrenalin kicked in, and while I was still frightened for Jazz, I also had that high you get after giving birth. That elation, tinged with so much anxiety is a strange combination!!!!!
Paul soon came back down, he'd been able to see where she went, but couldnt stay with her as they worked their magic. We waited for a very long time. Finally Flora reappeared, Jazz had amazed her already, she didnt expect that Jazz would stabilise very well, but she was stable from the start and doing great so far!! They were still working with her, so we were unable to see her yet, but things were looking better than we'd thought.
I had had my first niggles at 4.30pm, once labour established it was only 25 minutes for Jazz to be born at 8.36pm 16th March 2009. We finally got to see her at 12.30am on the 17th.
As I was wheeled into newborn services, I quickly became overwhelmed. Room after room of premmie and sick babies. We finally reached Bay 7, Jazzies home for the next 4 months minimum. Nothing will ever prepare you for a neonatal intensive care unit. So many isolettes, so many tiny prems, so much heartache and uncertainty. I started crying, completely overwhelmed before we got anywhere near Jazzie who had a window view at the end of the room.
When I saw her, I couldnt believe it. So very tiny and red.....but still crusted with poo! Eyes fused and hands so tiny they were no bigger than my thumbnail. Gone was that feeling of how ugly she was.....she was beautiful but oh so fragile! She was still on the flat bed with a radiant heater above her, despite how many tubes and wires were coming from her tiny body, I was stunned, I had been under the impression that she'd almost literally be covered!! So that wasnt as shocking as it couldve been!!! They had her in a ziplock sandwich bag which kept her humid and warm, that was wierd to see!! We stayed for ages, took photos and eventually Paul went home. I was supposed to go back to my room to rest, but who can rest after that!!!! I kept going back and forth from my room to Jazzies isolette all night (morning!! lol) and finally passed out in the very wee hours of Tuesday morning for a couple of hours.
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