Your baby's not in your womb!
Thursday 20th November 2008
It was my husband, Graham, who spotted it first.
'What's that?' he asked, pointing to what looked like a large air bubble at the top left of the screen in front of us.
'Oh, my God,' the hospital consultant gasped. 'That's your womb… and I don't think your baby's in it.'
It didn't make any sense. I had a big bump, and could clearly see a head and legs on the monitor. So if my baby wasn't in my womb, where was it?
We hadn't planned for me to be pregnant. I was 37, and Graham was 38. We already had two girls, Rosie, 11, and Jessie, 9. Whenever they'd asked for a sister or brother, I'd just laughed. But at my first scan at 12 weeks, I'd felt it. Love. Pure love. We'd decided not to find out the sex.But secretly, I was hoping for a boy. I'd worried from the start, though,
that something was wrong. This felt different from my other two pregnancies, and not just because I was so much more tired.
At first, I'd put it down to being 10 years older this time round. But at 15 weeks, I felt an indescribable pain in my abdomen. It was excruciating, like nothing I'd ever felt before.
It turned out my placenta was two and a half times as big as it should have been, so we'd been referred to a consultant called Imogen Montague, at Derriford Hospital. Apparently, the large placenta could put a strain on the baby's heart, so I'd need weekly scans to check it.
I was given steroids too, to develop the baby's lungs, in case it had to be delivered early.
Then, two weeks later, I'd collapsed at home from the pain. Graham had taken one look at me and dialled 999. Back at the hospital, the doctors were unable to explain why I felt
so uncomfortable. But a scan showed my baby was all right, and that was all that mattered.
I was sent home with painkillers, which helped a bit. But for the next 10 weeks, the pain was constant. I learned to live with it, and carried on in my office job at a local clay works and ferrying the kids round.
Then, on 9 April 2008, I was lying in bed when I felt the baby wriggling like crazy. My stomach went really hard, then really soft. And the pain just stopped. Bliss. But it was soon back.
'Nice while it lasted,' I sighed.
Now though, on 10 April, I'd come back to Derriford for a routine scan at 27 weeks. And Graham had spotted my empty womb.
'Where's my baby?' I gasped.
But no one was listening. They were already booking me in to have an MRI scan.
And it was there that the incredible truth was revealed.
'You have a rare form of ectopic pregnancy,' Imogen explained.
'The fertilised egg left your Fallopian tube, but instead of travelling on to your womb, it set up home in your abdomen.'
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. My egg had taken a wrong turn! My womb was empty. It was like something out of a sci-fi film. Doctors hadn't spotted it before because of the position of the foetus. But the funny feeling I'd had the night before had been the baby moving, exposing my empty womb. The placenta had attached to the lining of my bowel. That was why it was so big, because the gut has more blood flowing into it than the womb.
But every time the baby turned, it tugged at its umbilical cord, yanking my bowel.
No wonder I was in such pain.
'It only happens in 1 in every 50,000 pregnancies, and many don't make it to 27 weeks as your baby has,' Imogen added.
It was too much. I burst into tears.
'The baby is developing well,' she reassured me. 'An amniotic sac has formed around it with a little fluid in it. He or she is fine.'
She paused. 'It's you we're worried about.'
It was half-term, so we'd taken the girls with us to the hospital. They sat in silence as we all heard the news. Apparently if the baby moved too quickly, it could tear my bowel, causing me to haemorrhage and bleed to death from the inside.
'We'll try to get you to 33 or 34 weeks,' Imogen said. 'We'll have a team of anaesthetists and specialists on standby. With your permission, I'd also like to film the birth for medical research.'
'OK,' I gulped, nervously.
Suddenly, the birth seemed to be becoming totally overwhelming. At home, Graham and I sat in numbed silence. It seemed incredible that our baby could survive outside the womb.
But then, at least it meant our child was a battler. I was booked in for scans twice a week, and Imogen was hoping I could hang on until 19 May. Exactly a month before then, on Saturday 19 April, we went to watch Jessie play a football match 53 miles away, in Truro.
I made a picnic and we all went, along with my mum, Gill, 56. It was a great game, with Jessie scoring two goals to lead her team to victory.
But I missed the end of the match as, by then, I'd had to limp to the car. The pain had got worse again.
'Great game wasn't it, Mum?' Jessie said brightly, as we drove home.
'Mmm, yes,' I moaned, trying not to show how much pain I was in.
I looked down in horror. Sweat was pouring off me.
'Help,' I whimpered, before passing out.
Voices drifted in and out, as my eyes flickered open and shut.
Put the hazard lights on. Should we stop and call an ambulance?
'Just get to the hospital,' I mumbled. 'The baby's on its way.'
And one thing's for certain, it wasn't coming out the normal way. I'd like to describe us screeching to a halt outside the hospital and staggering up the corridor… But I can't remember anything. Except a pain so intense, my head felt ready to blow off my shoulders.
That and Graham's utter terror.
'Call the consultant,' he panted to the receptionist.
'Well… we need to see…'
'NOW!' he roared.
Poor Imogen was gardening when she got the call. She turned up at the hospital in wellies and gardening gloves, but soon scrubbed up and examined me.
'I think the placenta may be bleeding. I'm going to get the baby out now,' she said.
She called the team she'd had on standby, so I knew I was getting the best possible care.
But I was just over 28 weeks gone, and terrified for me and my baby. I knew that when they cut the baby out, there was a chance I'd bleed to death. A one-in-five risk. As a result, taking the placenta out was considered too risky. Instead, they'd tie up the end that had been attached to the baby, and hope that it would dissolve inside me.
Finally, I was taken into theatre, where 36 doctors, nurses and specialists were waiting.
As a sea of strange faces hovered over me, the tension was heavy in the air. I felt as if I couldn't breathe. If I closed my eyes, would I wake up again?
'Are you there, Imogen?' I whimpered.
I felt a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
'I'm here,' she replied. 'And I'll be with you all the way.'
Then the anaesthetic kicked in and everything went black.
When I came round, Graham was by my side. The pain I'd felt constantly for three months was gone.
'We've had a son,' Graham smiled. 'He's fine. He's breathing on his own.'
Minutes later, two nurses wheeled my boy in. He weighed just 2lb 2oz. But his little screwed-up face was so cute.
'Hello, Billy Bunter,' I beamed, as he was laid on my chest for a minute.
The name stuck, and later that night, Graham and I decided that we would call him Billy for good. I was kept in high-dependency for two days, but on the third, I amazed everyone by being up on my feet.
I was allowed home after six days, but Billy was kept in hospital until he was a bit bigger.
When he came home after 10 weeks, his head was still slightly squashed from where he'd been pressed up against my internal organs. But he was in great shape. Billy is 7 months old now, and such a contented baby that you wouldn't know he was there half the time.
But he's so gorgeous, I'd love him just as much if he screamed the whole house down.
I still have regular scans to check what's happening with the placenta, and to check there's no infection. Apparently, it's shrunk a bit already. But apart from that, Billy and I are none the worse for our ordeal. When he's older, I'll tell him the whole amazing story. I'll bet he's going to be the only boy in his class who's never set foot in a womb.
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