Fern Mason & Robert Hall, Hartlepool

With Elise my pregnancy was absolutely fine all the easy through she was due on the 9th August but held on in thee until the 14th I had pains all day but just ignored them and carried on with my day to day life but by 7pm they got a lot worse and my water finally broke.

My partner too me straight to the Hartlepool birthing centre as that I’d where I intended to give birth due to having no complications, unfortunately we were greeted my a grumpy midwife who insisted on telling us that she should have been on her holidays but she got me a chair and took me round the the birthing suite. I was in a lot of pain but only 8cm dilated the midwife told me to start pushing even though I was only 8cm but all the time checking baby’s heartbeat, after pushing for around 20 mins the heartbeat suddenly dipped and everyone seemed to just panic. An ambulance was called for me and I was transported to North tees, somewhere on that we minute journey elise stopped breathing when we got there the doctors and nurses checked her blood gases and instantly decided I needed an emergency C-section.

For someone like me this was petrified as I had never had an sort of operation and I thought my baby was I’m danger my partner unfortunately couldn’t be in the birth of his first child due to them having to put me to sleep.

Elise was born at 21:18 and taken straight to neonatal where it was decided she would be put on the cooling treatment unfortunately I couldn’t see her for a day as I couldn’t get out of bed but when I did my heart just broke she was in an incubator where they had to give her a breathing tube as she was getting stressed on the treatment and there seemed to be wires everywhere we both felt so helpless. As I had to stay in hospital I also couldn’t look after my 6 year old either I just didn’t feel like a mother. Luckily Elise only had to be on the cooling treatment for 3 days but had to have lumberpunches and antibiotics and then had to be transported to James Cook for an EEG. After me being in the hospital for around a week I got discharged but never felt pain like the pain of walking out of my house pregnant and walking back in not pregnant but with no baby, I couldn’t even open her nursery door. After around 11 days in hospital we finally got our baby home and it was the best feeling in the world. She is now 14 months and amazing she is so so clever and you would never know that she had such a horrible arrival into the world. I have so much gratitude for all the staff on the neo natal unit at North tees as if it was not for them my amazing little girl might not have been here today!!