Victoria C's Story

My pregnancy story

My husband and I fell pregnant with our first child in late November 2018. It was a very happy time and I couldn’t wait to create a life. The first few weeks were fine I had sickness but I could cope, but week 10 however I was extremely sick not being able to keep anything food or drink down I went to seek advise from maternity unit. I was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, this continued for weeks, with weekly visits for bags of fluids and an admission when it got really bad. No combinations of anti sickness medication seemed to help. The sickness didn’t go away until week 24 meaning my baby was coming up very small. She was born in July 2019 weighing 6lbs and beautiful.

I have always wanted more than one child so in late 2021 we fell pregnant with our second child, this time I was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum at 8 weeks pregnant and again for the first 18 weeks was very sick having to visit the hospital for fluids again anti sickness meds didn’t work. I continued plodding along until at 17 weeks and 6 days my waters started to brake we rush to the hospital after testing and exams it was explained that my waters had completely broken and baby only had a small bubble size pocket to keep it alive, we were told this pocket wasn’t big enough to sustain baby and that baby if carried to term or a survivable gestational age baby would have no quality of life they would likely be brain damaged and severely disabled. We were also advised that we were both fighting sepsis and if we continued it was possible to take both our lives, we were advised/told to have a medical termination without this my likelihood of survival was not certain, with a two year old at home and a very heavy heart we went ahead with the TFMR. Baby Allan was born still on 26.2.22 at 110grams.

The time that followed I through myself into my work, distanced myself from people as no one seemed to understand or say the right thing. I hated the world I hated everyone but mainly I hated myself and my body and the death and destruction it had created. The only thing that kept me going was our daughter.

After some time to greave time for my body to heal and patience we decided in late 2023 what would be would be. In March 2024 I fell pregnant again to start off I felt good so there was hope that it might not be too bad but at week 6 the hyperemesis gravidarum came back but this time with a vengeance from week 6 the sickness began and by week 10 I could no longer eat meals I could only eat custard, jelly and skips. This continued for weeks in may I woke to the most painful burning pain in my leg, with several hospital visits a VQ and MRI scan I was diagnosed with a blood clot that runs the entire length of my left leg and a pulmonary embolism in my lung, treatment began straight away i was also admitted into hospital for fluids as I was starting to loose a large amount of weight, then at week 16 I had a bleed so we went to the hospital at this point I was starting to struggle to even keep water down. My midwife took one look at me and said I had to be admitted I was now weighing under 6 stone and you could visibly see all my bones. I was started on fluids to which over the next few days I had around 10 bags. I was still very sick and not showing any signs of getting better just worse it was then decided I needed several potassium transfusions along with vitamin transfusion and 2 blood transfusions. I was also receiving anti sickness injections but they weren’t working I was still being sick so they decided to put me on a 10 week course of anti sickness meds and steroids. By week 24 I was feeling much more normal and could eat again.

We then had another bleed to which I was advised my cervix had shrunk and was very small so I was put on a course of meds to stop my serving shortening any further. I was then diagnosed with gestational diabetes this felt like the final straw could anything else go wrong in this pregnancy were we going to get there.

At 34 and 6 we were surprised and over joyed with the safe natural delivery of our baby girl on 10.10.24 as she was premature we stayed in the hospital for monitoring, baby was diagnosed with jaundice and had light therapy for 12 hours she then dropped 7.2% of her birth weight which she was only 4lbs 9ounces.

After 1 week of hospital we were allowed home as baby girl was feeding and doing great.

To this day I am so grateful to my amazing family who have supported us through this very turbulent and difficult time!!

I may not have my beautiful baby Allan but I know he watched over and kept his little baby sister safe and strong so that we now have our rainbow baby.