From Pre-term to Pre-teen: Our Tale

                                     

2010 day 1

                           2010 day   15


I remember waking up on Thursday, April 29th, 2010 on my hospital bed where I had been for 3 weeks preceding that day. ( I was diagnosed with placenta previa in the earlier months of pregnancy and was placed on strict in-patient bed rest.)
      A friend of mine on the ward was booked for C-section on this day so I woke up early to motivate her. At breakfast time I ate and I was there gisting and lightening everyone's mood as usual and the doctors arrived as conventional for a routine check on patients one after the other when it was my turn. Dr Fetipigi (I can never forget his name) examined my abdomen and looked at me with the rise of an eyebrow like he noticed something different.  Then he asked me. " How are you feeling madam," I said fine as usual.  He replied you are already in labour 🤔. I replied Aah! @ 33weeks and 5 days? "He said yes. And because of your condition (the indication for the emergency 🚨 C-section was pre-term contractions/ labour in patients already booked for surgery for medical reasons ), we need to take you to the theatre immediately" He called my husband who is his colleague and he showed up with all that was required including his 📷. The rest of the day was Chronicles of one activity to the other. @ 2 pm my asphyxiated 2.2kg baby was delivered via cesarian section. My elder sister who is also a doctor living a few miles away arrived just in time before the baby was brought out.  He was quite small as expected. She watched the paediatrician battle for my little boy's life (birth asphyxia). I woke up fully almost 6 hours after surgery.  Saw my son in the incubator on the 3rd day when I was finally able to move around the hospital 🚑 and visit him@ the neonatal ward. My boy spent one week in the incubator which included 3 days on oxygen-breathing support, his grandma (my mum) by his side day and night, monitoring him assiduously through his first days of life. The rest like they say is history. He was finally discharged 2 weeks after. (@1.9kg).
Happy 10th birthday to my son and all pre-term newborns of 2010. Keep shinning on and breaking limits.
✍@OlatounGraceny