Conditions that threaten women’s lives in childbirth & pregnancy

 

Some of it, my wife had heard before, a lot of it was new to both of us. Sort of finding out a lot of information. There was possibly a bit of information overload because we were just trying to understand things ourselves, and there seemed to be this strong procession of, you know, one doctor after another doctor, another doctor, I don’t know if that’s normal or if it’s not normal, but there seemed to be a lot of doctors. My memory’s probably not that great, because I’m thinking of so many different things, but I have this sort of vague memory of being introduced to about four anaesthetists and it sort of, there was just one after the other, after the other. 

 

They explained, there was a little bit of an overlap between some of them, but a lot of them were explaining slightly different things, as to what their role was going to be.

 

 

No I think they did actually a wonderful job of trying to explain it in a way that a medical dummy like me could sort of understand things. So, there were lots of sort of key words that I was trying to make sure okay. Pre eclampsia, a couple of doctors had mentioned that. I actually have never heard of that before. I don’t know if it’s common or not common, but okay. That’s you know, what we’ve got here. So just trying to remember a couple of key words. And sort of take in as much as I could.

So I tried to go back through to the wards, the operating room. I just asked for some kind of update, and again the guy said, “Oh sorry, you know, you can’t, there’ve been a, there’ve been a few complications but everything’s fine.” And of course, by that stage, the everything fine message isn’t entirely believed. Not necessarily that they’re lying, but it just carries no weight in terms of emotional reassurance by that stage. Because everything should have been fine all the way along, but you know.

 

But anyway so I went back to wait some long, some more. And then after, I don’t know how long. You know, it’s one of those things, actually, now, you kind of think it will be totally like burned on your brain, and it’s not. But after ever so many kind of hours it was, one of the guys came through down, the anaesthetist I think it was, the anaesthetist came through and kind of said, well I mean, the good news is that [Hannah] was okay, [Hannah] was, you know, all right. But then that she’d had, she’d had various complications and had been taken up to intensive care. And they’d had to regulate her blood gases and so therefore she was on a vent. And, you know, I’d been able to go up and see her, in whatever it was, in a while.

 

And I was like, “Okay, okay thank you very much.” And that’s, that’s when I do remember actually being, getting, that’s like, you know, when it wells, just because she’s going to wake up on a vent, she’s going to wake up. That’s exactly what she was petrified of doing, and, and the image and experience that was so, you know, so much part of the bad experiences with her Mum, and that kind of stuff. And that’s what she was going to do, and she was going do it alone, because I wasn’t going to be there, and so I did kind of well at that. 

 

And then it was just a case of wanting to see her, and, and, get the, get [daughter] to her, get the baby to her because you know, we’d always wanted as much as a natural birth as possible and the baby being Caesarean, feeding as soon as possible and all that kind of stuff. And so then, it just became a case of right I just want to see her as soon as I can, and go and get baby to her.

 

And again, I don’t know how much time I’m afraid went by, but we went up and saw her and she was kind of tubes here and there and... actually I was surprised in theatre and afterwards in intensive care that that didn’t bother me too much. I, you know, I wasn’t, I wasn’t aware how I’d be with that kind of stuff, but actually it just was what it was, and that was fine. 

 

And she was actually okay, and by that stage I remember like, just in terms of talking about it before, you know, from that stage on basically my main emotion was kind of gratitude really that it had, you know, it had stopped. You know, it had got so far, and that was horrendous but the, she, you know, she was okay. [Hannah] was, you know, [Hannah] was okay. Not great, but she was alive. And [daughter] was alive and [Hannah] was alive and so yes, kind of gratitude at that and just kind of love and protection for [Hannah] really. Just that real sense of okay she’s gone through all this and I haven’t been able to anything else. You know, hopefully now I do get a chance to help her out and just try and protect her a bit from all of it. 

 

All I could hear was “Crash theatre one. Crash theatre one.” Being echoed and I knew we were in theatre one, so my immediate thought was I’ve lost my wife Or you know, I’ve lost one or both the children, or everybody. I was in pieces, absolute pieces. And I poked my head out of the room and some young lady came up and said, “Oh you’re in the way there. Can you go back in the room.” And I asked her to come in the room, and I just explained to her that I’d been stuck in here for well over an hour, well it felt like two days, but I’m sure it was a very short time, and that I was getting quite distraught and if somebody didn’t and see me very soon, then I’d start shouting and screaming, until somebody does come in and talk to me and tell me what’s going on with my family.

 

And then a sister turned up and said, “Oh there’s been a problem. Everything’s okay, but there’s been a problem.” And that my wife had been ill when she was being intubated. And she’d stopped breathing. So immediately it goes through your head, oxygen starvation, brain damage, blah di blah. She said, “Stay in the room, and we’ll give you a shout, when they’re coming out the operating theatre.” 

 

And I was asked to come up, stand outside the operating theatre when everybody went past. So I saw the children go past. And probably didn’t really recognise the children to be honest. I just saw two little things going past. Didn’t really pay that much attention to be honest, because I was a little bit on the freaked side about my wife because I saw her getting wheeled out and she had tubes coming out of everywhere and there was lots of blood and stuff, and I just didn’t know what was going on. You know, people can tell you, for a nurse or a doctor, or a surgeon I should say, they would have experienced this before, they’ve seen it before, they understand it. But a drop of blood will go, will make, you know, make a spot this big, but for me, you know, seeing everything covered in blood and everything, I thought somebody was dead.

So her Dad came down with us, you know, and she kept saying, you know, and she kept saying, she said stuff, and you know, and she was saying goodbye and all this. And I’m like, here don’t be bloody daft you know. You know, I was worried, you know, I’m not, I wasn’t like. I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that there wasn’t, you know, that it wasn’t going to be complicated, you know, I wasn’t going in, oh yes, it’s lovely …. You know, I knew some fact it was potentially going to happen, but you know, nothing, nothing prepared.

 

But because obviously I wasn’t thinking that it could be as bad as that, bearing in mind how quickly they’d, the other two had gone, about ten, eleven minutes or whatever. Start to finish. I think half an hour had gone by and no-one had come out and I didn’t even, I wasn’t even worried. Because I though well obviously you’ve got this grade four. You know, I’ve never seen a placenta. I don’t know, you know, it might be quite tough to get through. And he might have to tie up some vessels. Who knows what? You know. 

 

So I didn’t worry, and then, and then it got to an hour she’d been in there, and I still hadn’t seen anybody. Because I was in like recovery. Pacing up and down. And so then after about an hour I was getting worried then, and you know, and I lie, I had seen a couple of nurses come in, “How are you, blah, blah, blah.” I said, “How’s things?” “Oh yes, it’s going all right. A few complications.” You know, but again that sort of made me think, well that’s of what we expected anyway so. 

 

Yes, then it got to an hour and I started to get a bit twitchy with an hour, you know, because I hadn’t had any real information. You know, saying there’s been a few complications, but you know, that’s not telling me anything is it, not really. .So, and then so it was an hour, may be an hour and ten, twenty, whatever. It had just gone over the hour and then a bloody nurse and a doctor came pounding into the room, and they was white, they was white. And I remember they were stood there and they both come up to me, and the nurse kind of come and stood next to me, all a little bit too close. I don’t like people standing too close to me. So she got in my zone and I wasn’t comfortable with that. And then they were both pale, you know, and he said, “ Something to ask you, I’ve got something to ask you Mr [name].” I said, “Well, what is it?” He says, “Yes, we’ve had some complications.” “Oh yeah.” You know. “And… baby’s all right, but we’re going to have to give your wife a hysterectomy. Because we can’t stop the bleeding.” With that the nurse touched me and so I kind of … you know, no thanks. “But we are going to have to do a hysterectomy to stop the bleeding, because we can’t stop it.” And I remember as clear as day, I said, “Well what you are stood here for then. Just go, just go and do it.” You know, he said, “Well we have to ask your permission…” I said, “Stop talking to me.” Do you know, none of this “We have to ask your permission.” You know, “Yes, I can understand why, you don’t want me suing you afterwards for doing it, when I didn’t say. But for goodness, sake, you know, if you know, if you’ve got to stop her bleeding, you just whip it out don’t you?” 

 

So he came to ask my permission to do it. And I thought you know, the first bit of information I’ve had is a guy asking me if he can do… So I just said, “Why are you talking to me, just go and do it.&