Cayleb- our premature baby

Cayleb Samuel

Born: 24 August 1996 08.30am

Weight: 1061 grams (2lb6)

Cayleb was born at 29 weeks. Once again, Mummy had Pre-eclamspia, but this time it was worse.

Early in the pregnancy I experienced spotting, and because I had recently miscarried, I thought it was happening again. I needed to know, so I called the doctor to organise a scan. It took a while to convince them to give me one that day, but we got one and it showed a seemingly healthy pregnancy. I found that the spotting could have been a result of the D and C and the placenta not attaching properly, so I had scan after scan for my own piece of mind. Once the bleeding stopped I thought everything was going to be fine.

I was told that with pre-eclampsia, you have more of a chance in getting it with the first pregnancy. Re-occurence is normally not as servere in subsequent pregnancys, and often occurs later. I was prescribed aspirin from 20 weeks as a prevention method, but typical me, didn't go with the trend - but against it!

Once again, I woke with a pain - but this time it was like a stitch in my shoulder.....my doctor confirmed that I had pre-ecclampsia and referred me to hospital. The doctor I saw was wonderful, and he reassured me that I knew my body, and he listened to me! He wanted to hold me off from delivery up to two weeks to give Cayleb's lungs a better chance. I was given drips to try to thin my blood and monitored closely, but after 3 days the pain, (which had moved to under my ribs) was really getting to me and although the test results were still classed as "ok", at about 5am they made the decision to delivery me.

The midwife put me off calling Brendan until about 7 and by the time he arrived I was about to go into theatre. I kept telling everyone to wait for him and I was lucky that he arrived when he did or he would have miss out and I wouldn't have been on my own.

Because of the previous c-section and the early gestation, another c-section was done. During the section, before the baby was 'born' we were told we had a little boy! At 8.30am (Saturday) Cayleb was brought into this world and taken straight to NICU.

I was very ill this time, with Pre-e, HELLP and I went to HDU. I can recall part of the time in HDU - I remember getting an infection, and also the Doctor getting quite worried that my platlets were still dropping. I was told that normally with Pre-eclampsia, once the baby is delivered you begin to recover. I stayed there until I saw Cayleb 36hours later for the first time.

On Wednesday I was interviewed for the NZ Herald and a pic of Cayleb and me were put in. The nurses had made a book in which they wrote notes and put tags, tubes that Cayleb had used. I also took lots of photos.

Cayleb stayed in NICU (Intensive care) for about 4 weeks - although he didn't need to - before going to SCBU (special care), the hospital referred to Cayleb as ideal....what they like to see......with no problems.

Here are some things that happened during Cayleb's stay:

Day 1 25/8 Off Ventilator, on CPAP

Sometime now his weight dropped to about 975gms

Day 4 28/8 Longline in arm (they can be left longer that IV)

Day 6 30/8 Mum's first Kangaroo cuddle(skin to skin contact which is benefitial to baby)

Day 12 5/9 Longline out

Day 22 15/9 1500gms

When in SCBU they thought Cayleb had an infection, because he had high temperatures,(which can be fatal) but the tests came back negative

Cayleb was given a bottle (after I had specifically noted NO bottles) by a nurse, which highly annoyed me

We brought Cayleb home (after a bit of a fight with the staff) when he was 35 weeks gestation, 6 weeks later. They had a program which randomly selects babies to leave at 35wks gestation (providing they are healthy), as normally the healthy babies leave at about 40wks. We tried for the selection, but were not chosen. We decided that if they would have let him go if the computer said to, that we were going anyway! We debated with the charge nurse, paediatrician etc and because we had experience with a prem we got to bring him home. I spent one night with him in the special (self-contained) room and the next day we were off. He weighed 2120grams.

I have to add that leaving my children in hospital, when I was ready to leave - was once of the worst things we have had to go through.......