One Mum’s Story: Toni & Amee

Andrew and I had decided we were going have a baby after being together for seven years, so I went off the pill after being on it for 10 years. I went to my GP and he said I would ovulate on a particular day, so Andrew and I tried and I fell pregnant first shot.

I had hypertension before I was pregnant so I knew pregnancy may have some complications. I was on medication for it which was keeping it under control.

All the scans at 11 weeks and 18 weeks were good. I had no morning sickness, it was a perfect pregnancy. I went to my GP for my 26 week check up and everything was good, my BP was a little up but not too much.

We were in the middle of planning our wedding when the following week at 27 weeks I got a cold. On the Thursday night I noticed my ankles were puffy and Andrew and I both said that can happen in pregnancy and didn’t think much more of it as they went down overnight.

But by Monday morning I felt really sick so I went to my GP again and he said that I had a chest infection. He took my BP - it was 180/100, he said that was too high so he sent me straight to the hospital. When I got there, I gave them a urine sample and it came up with 2 + protein. From then on I went down hill, they told me that if they didn’t deliver my baby that night I would die within 12 to 24 hours and that I was in the late stages of Pre Eclampsia.

They hooked me up to a drip with magnesium and hydrelazine which I found out I had a reaction to. I kept vomiting every time they administered it to me. I was rushed from the local hospital to the Mercy Hospital for Women in Melbourne in a critical condition. Before I was transferred my BP was 206/140 - my kidneys had started to shut down.

By the time I got to Melbourne my BP was 220/140. Andrew arrived about 20 minutes after I got there thanks to my uncle taking him down at very short notice and waiting there all night. I was taken into a delivery room and one of the

paediatricians came to see me and told me that my baby had an 80-90% survival rate. I thought that was pretty good odds considering my baby was stable on the fetal monitor the whole time.

The doctors checked to see if I had gone into labour but I hadn’t so they took me in for an emergency caesarean section. At 1:53am, 10 hours after going to the GP’s, my daughter Amee was born weighing 823 grams at 27 weeks gestation. She cried when she was born and when I heard her cry I cried myself.

The doctors told us what they were doing with her the whole time in the operating theatre - they incubated her which the next day was weaned to CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure - a kind of oxygen mask). They took my little girl off to NICU (Neo Intensive Care Unit).

I didn’t see her for two day as I was in ICU. It was hard not being able to see my daughter to know if she was ok. It made my cry being away from her for those two days. The doctors told us that she was very small for her GA (Gestational Age) and that she was the size of a 25 weeker not 27 weeker so must have stopped growing for a couple of weeks before she was born.

She spent 26 days on CPAP before breathing on her own with no assistance. She spent 11 weeks in hospital, six weeks at the Mercy Hospital in Melbourne and five weeks in our local hospital before coming home. Our local hospital said that I was one of the worst cases of Pre Eclampsia they had seen. I was very scared through all of this but I was glad that I had a girl in my situation as even though she was very small she was very strong and fought to stay alive.

I hope me sharing my story helps anyone in my situation to know that there is hope.

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