The Families
lf you would like to share your stories with us then please do so by emailing darensamat@vasapraevia.co.uk.
Your contribution will be much appreciated and added to our blog. Please note: Stories that are shown as follows ^i^, sadly involve the death of a child.
Baby Luca
Baby Luca – Son of Suzy Le Carpentier
We are so lucky to be alive today
A Timely Prenatal Diagnosis Helped to Save baby Luca Le Carpentier. 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 hour.