Bring some comfort to Katie

On the 25th April 2021, at 41 weeks and 1 day pregnant I went into labour at 2am with my second baby girl. Elara, our toddler, was in bed sleeping, so we called my parents to come and mind her while we went into hospital as the contractions were less than 5 mins apart for over an hour. Around 2 minutes before my parents arrived I felt an incredible pain in my diaphragm. Like a huge tear and it was excruciating and I lost all energy instantly. I told Mike my partner to phone an ambulance and the paramedics arriving is the last thing I remember.

As I was so out of it they assumed my pain was down to normal labour pains and I was left to labour in the MLU unit of my local hospital until I was checked and they noticed Emmie had pooped in her waters. We were rushed off for an emergency c section and as soon as they opened me up 2 litres of blood clots fell to the floor. They removed Emmie and resuscitated her for 16 minutes, which is how she developed such bad brain damage.

I woke up Monday afternoon from an induced coma. After my c section, they had to cut me right up my tummy to search for where the bleed was coming from and discovered my spleens artery had torn. There is a 75% mortality rate just for this part of my surgery. I was then taken by ambulance to ICU in another hospital (away from Emmie and Mike) and lost another 2 litres of blood there so they reopened me and had another dig around to make sure I had stopped bleeding. 

It was a HUGE surgery and everyone in the 2 hospitals I have been in seem to know who I am or have worked on me. The day after I woke from the coma I was transferred back to the same hospital as Emmie and finally got to meet her at 2 days old. She is perfect. She is everything I dreamt she would be and my world felt complete. I was told that Emmie was extremely poorly but continued to pray and believe she would be okay. At just one week old her body was shutting down and starting to suffer so we made the absolutely heartbreaking decision to provide her with pain relief and remove her tube. She passed away peacefully in my arms last Sunday and I already know I will never be the same person again.

UPDATE: I popped my story up on the Freaks Facebook page to ask for help with my very sore and swollen skin. Since my surgeries I have needed 24/7 one on one care as I can’t even go to the toilet on my own. 

I have developed sores on my body, extreme swelling due to the 17 units of blood I needed transfusing, multiple iv access, scarring, dryness, eczema etc. Since then I have also had all the veins in my arms collapsed, central veins in my neck put in which has ripped hair out and given me incredibly dry sore skin around my neck. Burns from ct scan blowing a vein. Very itchy dry skin around my scarring. Incredible bruising that prevents me from moving as normal. And most recently (yesterday) I now have pneumonia too. 

I am blown away by the incredible love and support from the group and cannot even begin to thank you all for the lovely advice, support and just kindness! So many of you have lit candles on Emmie’s behalf and it’s such a beautiful feeling knowing she is also so cared for by so many “strangers”. My heart is broken and I know nothing will ever change that but it also hasn’t hit me properly yet and the day it does I will cry so so hard. I am currently a numb robot going through the motions of hospital life and just trying to get better to get home to see Elara.

Emmie we will always love you and you will forever be our baby girl.