Just wanted to introduce to the online world the newest
addition to our family. Little Miss Audrey Zi Wei Jackson
Audrey was born on Friday 10 January at 7:28am, and we are
very blessed at the arrival of our little princess.
We are grateful for the Lord and His blessing throughout the
entire process. First of all we weren’t trying to get pregnant so when it
happened it was a bit of a surprise. Then there was the realisation that we
will soon have 2 under 2, how will we cope?!?!?!
We’ve been really lucky in that we have a great Obstetrician
who we love! If anyone is reading this and wants a great Obstetrician for
either Westmead or the Hills area I would definitely recommend Dr Seng Chua. He
has been great in making sure that both me and bub were doing well throughout
the pregnancy. At the beginning of the pregnancy we decided to change our
hospital from Norwest Private to Westmead Private. It wasn’t because Norwest
was bad or anything, but it was more the fact that the last time round the
Anaesthetist costs were $2600, which is more than what we paid for our
Obstetrician. We were told Westmead Private’s anaesthetist is cheaper by far,
so we decided that it was a better option. Besides we could look at the two
different hospitals and figure out which was is better if we decide on future
babies.
Looking back now, we truly believe that choosing Westmead
Private was the start of the Lord’s hand at work.
Personally I have pretty good pregnancies, I rarely have any
problems, with little Audrey I didn’t even have any morning sickness.
However a totally different story when it came to delivering
our little princess. This time round we had a planned C-section, which very
quickly turned into an emergency C-section.
I was in the pre-op area getting my IV and antibiotics
(Keflin) put in through my cannula. Shortly after the first dose of Keflin I
started to cough, personally I only remember one cough but I was later told
that I went into a coughing fit. Started going really red, and a little blue
around my lips. Then I tilted to the side and blacked out for a period of time.
Having never fainted before this was quite a scary experience.
I was then quickly wheeled into the operating room and
luckily by that time my Obs arrived and was all scrubbed up. When I came to, I
noticed that my tummy started to hurt so I was telling everyone that my tummy
hurts. Turns out that I was experiencing a tetanic contraction, which is a
contraction that just doesn’t stop. Unfortunately because the contractions were
non-stop it started to put a lot of pressure on Audrey. At one point the
mid-wife was having problems locating her heartbeat, as they could only find a
heartbeat around 80bpm, and for babies it should be around 150bpm. So an
ultrasound was quickly called for. My Obs found the heartbeat but even I could
see that it was beating really slow, much slower than normal. This just freaked
me out like crazy and I was going hysterical and just saying over and over
again “please save my baby…” Everyone in the operating theatre were really
focused in making sure we were both safe, and I was put under general
anaesthesia straight away. And with that I had no idea what happened next.
Poor Jacob was still sitting outside and the last thing he
heard was my tummy hurts, so he was worried that something bad was gonna happen
to his wife and his baby. What seemed like an eternity he was eventually lead
into the operating theatre. When he entered he could see that my eyelid was
taped shut, but the baby was at least crying and he got to cut part of the
cord.
Happy to say everyone is safe and well. We did find out
later on that the pH in bub’s cord blood was 7.0 (which is borderline bad), her
1min APGAR was 5 (once again, bad), but her 5mins and 10mins APGAR was 7, which
meant she picked up really well. As for me, all my blood works came back as
normal, which means I’m not allergic to Keflin. However I’m still booked into a
medical allergy test just in case I have some type of reaction to penicillin
based products.
At the moment I’m still a medical mystery, they have no idea
why I had the so-called reaction, and they don’t believe the contractions was a
result of the reaction. It just seems like I had a few complications that
occurred at the same time.
So how do I know that the Lord has looked after us
throughout this pregnancy?
1.
There was a really great team looking after me
at Westmead Private
2.
The anaesthetist also specialises in
paediatrics, and is one of the best at paeds resuscitation (luckily it didn’t
come down to that)
3.
Norwest Private was still in holiday staff mode,
so may not have the same number of staff available
4.
My obs who just finished one delivery made it to
my delivery just before I started to have my tetanic contractions
5.
Luckily we didn’t end up at ICU, but knowing who
the head anaesthetist was at ICU, I knew I would have been in good hands if I
ended up there
6.
Both Audrey and I are healthy (even though
Audrey did spend 2 nights in Special Care Nursery)
So this may mean that our family is complete… I’m not sure
how I would deal with the though of losing a child. But I’m glad we had a happy
ending this time round.
