august 2024

Delivery Diaries: 40 years old, low Papp-A, emergency c-section

c-section delivery diaries Recommended Products

Initial:
D

Age:
40

What number baby is this for you?
1

How long (ish) did it take to you to conceive?
We were very lucky and conceived first try

Was it a natural conception or did you need fertility treatment?
Natural

Did you have any medical conditions prior to pregnancy?
No

Did you have any conditions that developed during your pregnancy (e.g.Pre-eclampsia, Gestational diabetes)?
My wife had low Papp-A so that lead to a high risk score for Downs, Edwards and Patau's. We paid for a blood test that revealed the baby was fine but continued to be monitored closely with extra scans and a higher awareness of pre-eclampsia

Did you write birth plan? If so, what birth choices did you hope for?

We did an amazing hypnobirthing course with a midwife who opened our eyes to the body's amazing natural abilities and gave us much more clarity around what happens during labour & the confidence to be clear about what we wanted & didn't want. It was a very empowering thing that inspired a natural birth plan that was ideally going to be a water birth without medical intervention but was open-minded about the fact that the labour journey doesn't always go to plan.

What birth did you have?

We ended up with exactly the opposite of our birth plan :) Immediately admitted to the labour ward due to meconium upon inspection when we arrived at the hospital, my wife progressed very slowly with little dilation. After an epidural and drugs to help speed up the birth, the baby was showing sings of distress when they tried to up the dosage so we ended up with an emergency c-section.

How was your recovery from birth?

C-section recovery was a bit of a shock, with lots of help required in the first week or so but the wound healed really well and within 2 weeks my wife was up and about. It definitely took a few weeks more before she felt fully healed though.

Do you have any advice or helpful hints or tips that we can share with parents to be?

Whilst we've become obsessed with the idea of "the journey is more important than the destination", that's not true for having a baby. It's great to have a plan for the kind of labour you want but in the end you get what you're given and you realise that all that matters is that the baby arrives with Mum & baby safe & sound.

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