One Mum's Story: Rachael & Hunter

Hunter - 4 days old

So everything was going along like clockwork. I was still in the high risk group at the Royal Women's Hospital (RWH) in Carlton (Melbourne) but that was because of my history etc.

I'd say from about 25 weeks Bubs started to slow down in growth but the doctors weren't too worried as he was healthy and I was too. I had fortnightly scans just to make sure everything was going well.

Then at 35 weeks (28th February 2006) I woke up with pains - I just thought they were Braxton Hicks so I went shopping with my sister. We were having lunch and I was getting the pain about every 5 minutes and lasting about a minute. So we went home and I called the Kilmore Hospital, they said to come in. They put me on the CGT monitor and took my blood pressure and did a urine test. Then they called the RWH and came back to me about 10 minutes later to say the ambulance is on the way. The RWH even made the mid-wife come with me.

We got to the RWH and they did the usual tests, gave me something to try and stop the contractions - steroids for the baby etc. They told me that Hunter was in the breech position and little for his gestation, he had Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) and that my blood pressure was high. I had Pre-Eclampsia with no warning signs at all and my check-up the week before was all normal.

So they held off the labour for two days but on the 2nd March 2006 at 5:45am I got an almighty kick in the stomach and my waters broke so I was rushed up to theatre for an emergency C-Section.

Hunter - now

Hunter Rey was born at 6:35am (no one even made it to the hospital in time). He weighed 1705 grams and had an APGAR score of 8 and 9. He breathed on his own straight away and was taken up to the Special Care Nursery.

Hunter was transferred to the Northern Hospital at Epping as it was closer to home, when he was about a week old. He was in an open cot within a couple of days. He was doing really well and was tube fed for a few weeks with 2-3 suck feeds a day.

The only struggle he had was breastfeeding. He just couldn't suck. He was doing really well with bottle feeds so for nine weeks I expressed and gave him that but in the end I didn't have enough milk.

Hunter came home on the 3rd April 2006 (after a week of being at home but having to go back to the hospital to get checked). He weighed 2330gms.

Hunter has done well since then and has had no major problems and done things relatively on target and is now a healthy and very active three year old. He is still quite small at only 10.5kgs but his Paediatrician is keeping an eye on him and we also see the Genetics team at the Royal Childrens Hospital in Melbourne once a year.

Hunter and brother Deegan

We also discovered he had quite bad tongue tie which would explain why he was unable to breastfeed.

He has also had some trouble speaking but he is coming along in leaps and bounds and is improving every day.

Rachael McKay

* Editor's Note: Rachael has also shared Hunter's brother Deegan's story (pictured).

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