SAMANTHA GRAHAM - PREMATURE BABY

7th July 2006

Samantha Louise Graham is now 5 months old (2 months corrected!)

In the last couple of days, she has started weaning and she is such a happy, feisty, loving, gorgeous baby that to be honest I feel that I have blocked out the first four months of her life and that it all really began when she came home just before her due date on the 27th April - she was due on 8th May 2006 :-)

I went onto the forums tonight - those that had kept me sane when I was going through all the heartache with Samantha and I cried, reading the posts of others going through what I went through, bradycardias, apnoeas, monitors - it was so strange to think now that it all happened to me!

For those of you who don't know Samanthas story - I lost my waters at 22 weeks and was sent home from the hospital with the news that I had to go and wait for my miscarriage. When I asked the doctor the chances he simply said there is an 80% chance you will miscarry. I was devastated.

Samantha was a very much wanted and planned baby, we had been trying for 3 years.

When I made it to 24 weeks, things changed and I referred myself to our university hospital, as my local hospital didn't class her as 'viable' until 28 weeks.

We then visited the hospital twice a week for blood tests and swabs etc. I was admitted at 25 weeks and given the steroid injection for fear that I was getting a virus.

At 26 weeks I woke up in the morning and went to the toilet and felt the cord between my legs.

I was devastated, from everything I read I knew this was the worst thing that could have happened

As luck had it - I had been visiting a site called PROM - http://www.kanalen.org/prom/new_to_prom.php

On this site I had read about cord prolapse and the advice if this was to happen to you, was to get on all fours, with your bum in the air and stay there.

So that is exactly what I did, I was wheeled into the hospital on all fours with my bum in the air!!!!

I was rushed into theatre and they listened for the babies heartbeat, but the doctor said it was too late, there was no heartbeat.

Me and my husband both started to cry, but then a nurse spoke out and said that she could see the heartbeat.

The next thing I knew I was being woken up and told that Samantha had been born.

Nobody really said much to me at that point. It was all very scary, at just 26 weeks, I knew the risks.

We went through Ventilators, CPAP, Nasal Cannulars, monitors, apnoeas, bradycardias, doing her cares, drip feeding, expressing milk, it all just seemed never ending.

And now here I am, 5 months on, with my beautiful baby girl at home and putting on weight for England!

She's 9lb 9oz now, which is a good weight for her :-) She came home two months ago weighing just 5lb.

She came home on 0.04 of oxygen, but she was only on it for 3 weeks.

I always intended to put this website together, but having been in SCBU for 3 months, I'm sure many of you who have been through it know, when you get home, you just want to forget about it for a while, so I've waited until now.

I hope that my story can give comfort to others who are going through pregnancy difficulties and are at risk of premature labour.

All I can say is that these little ones are such fighters and there is so much they can do these days.

If anyone is going through a similar situation and wants some advice or just wants to say hi, then you can always email me at gazzg@btopenworld.com

I will try and post some more information on this site and pictures etc. but for those of you who advised me and helped me back in January, I really want to say thank you so much, you were so helpful to me (you know who you are!) :-) and I will be forever grateful to you :-)

Take care, Laura xxxxxxxxxx

BabyWorld Premature Forum
http://www.babyworld.co.uk/wb2/default.aspx?action=101&shp=38&fid=38

Bounty Premature Forum
http://www.bounty.com/community/discussion/Tree.asp?btySubID=148