Hi All
Compustat Staff (nhorizon@iafrica.com)
Tue, 27 Feb 1996 23:25:48 +0200 (GMT+0200)
Hi everyone, I am from Cape Town, South Africa so a bit of a foreigner on
your group but thrilled to be on it. I am a two time preemie mom. Gareth
born 19 November 1991 was born at 33 weeks and Devin (Mouse) was born 8
March 1994. They are both miracles in more ways than one as I was told
by the "medical profession" that it was virtually impossible for me to
have a baby. At 36 I fell pregnant with Gareth and for the first few
months had break through bleeding controlled by hormone injections - at
32 weeks my waters broke and after trying to keep my going for a few days
they induced when I was 33 weeks. Gareth was a good birth weight 2.5kg
and although had hyland membrane did not have any significant problems -
at the time of his birth we did not have sufactant here. He was only in
hospital for 1 week and has always been ahead of children his age.
I then astounded doctors again by falling pregnant at 38, I refused an
amnio this time as realised after having had one the first time that no
way could I abort if there was a problem. My waters broke at 24 weeks
and if only I had had more information on preemies prior to this
happening I could have saved myself a lot of heartache. I had no idea
that once waters have broken they can build up again - nor had I ever
heard of babies so prem surviving. I was rushed to Groote Schuur
hospital, which some of you may have heard of through the first heart
transplant - well now believe me it is third world and I thought I would
lose my sanity lying there - thats another story. Anyway I managed to
transfer back to my private hospital where they kept me on a drip for a
further two weeks. On the 8 March, I woke up feeling incredibly
constipated, eventually I went to the loo and found meconium (spelling)
being passed through me. They immediately rushed me in for a caesar, he
had fallen bottom first through my cervix - poor little mite was bruised
terribly. He was born with a very bad infection and weighed 1.1kg again
a good weight. He was critically ill for a number of days and on the
third day the nuns in the hospital baptised him as no one (except me)
held any hope of survival. He ran through the normal gauntlet of blood
transfusions, lumbar punctures, infections etc. We kept him on oxygen
for virtually the full three months he was there. He was such a greedy
guts that eventually they put him on cereal - before he was even due to
be born. When we brought him home he was on a apnea monitor for
approximately 6 months and it really saved his life on more than one
occassion.
Today, he is an extremely active two year old, we have just had him
assessed and he is right on track in all areas except speech which is a
bit behind. He does suffer from chest problems and was hospitalised 10
times last year with an average stay of approx 10 days at a time. My
older son has also been hospitalised a number of times with chest
infections. Devin also had a hernia op a few months ago, but was running
around barely an hour after the op.
They may be tiny and put us through grief - but they are all so special
and I'm sure you will all agree that the experience has left us wiser,
with more compassion and certainly monetary poorer.
INA, mom to Gareth 4 (33 weeker), Devin 2 (26 weeker) and wife to Doug.