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Our Stories-Our Stories-How to Share Your Story Kerri Bond - Queensland, Australia Hi my name is Kerri Bond of Gladstone Queensland Australia, I have decided to send you a copy of Alanah Rose's birth story. Alanah died exactly 2 years ago as a direct complication of pre-eclampsia. I went on to have another baby very quickly but she was an emergency c-section at 32 weeks with the pre-e developing again very quickly. I hope that this is suitable. “Our Little Angel Too Special to Keep – Alanah Rose Bond” My little angel Alanah Rose was born on 10th January 2000 at 2:50pm weighing in at 6lb 10oz, a great weight for 37 weeks. It appears that she died at about lunchtime the previous day, this was the last time I remember movement. I think I will remember that moment until the day I die. My pregnancy finally began after 14 long months of trying, following my third miscarriage at 12.5 weeks. All my other pregnancies had happened either in the first month or without trying (I even fell pregnant on the pill once!). Everything was going great, I felt as sick as a dog and loved it as it reassured me that all was well. Nine weeks in, I had my first stay in hospital with a threatened miscarriage, I went in at about 11:00pm and couldn't have an ultrasound until late the next morning, thankfully it showed a healthy little jellybean. I felt my first movements around 14 weeks and she was always very active from then on. At 16 weeks I was in hospital again this time with high blood pressure, headaches, vomiting and a strange rash on my legs and abdomen. No light was ever spread as to the cause of this illness. Again Alanah was doing just fine. At 21 weeks after spending the night vomiting, I had a funny loss of what turned out to be my mucus plug. I had been going to go to work but decided that maybe I should see my GP because of this. Thank God I did, he found me 3cm dilated and membranes bulging. Within an hour and a half I was in theatre with my wonderful OB/Gyn putting in a suture. Then I was flat on my back with my feet elevated (a most comfortable way to spend your nights) to make sure that I didn't continue with labour. I was also diagnosed with an irritable uterus, which meant that my Braxton hicks contractions really hurt and occurred almost constantly. Again they assured me that Alanah was doing just fine, it was only me that was suffering. The plan was that they would remove the stich at 37 weeks and induce labour, providing I held out that long. I then spent more time in hospital at 30 weeks with more threatened prem-labour which they treated with a drip, Ventolin and steroids for Alanah's lungs. They managed to hold it off again, the stitch was still in place and I hadn't dilated. Alanah still was doing just fine. From this time on I really began to worry. Alanah's movements seem to really slow down and I would have long periods without any movement at all. They did numerous CTG's and assured me they were fine, however I wasn't so sure, her heartbeat was VERY erratic, it would go right up to over 200bpm and then drop down to about 115bpm. On Thursday 6th January, at 36 weeks 4 days, after spending the day at work in increasing pain because of the contractions and with a feeling of heaviness I went to hospital again. My blood pressure was 165/105, I had what I considered to be severe swelling (they said it was moderate) and ++ protein. The locum (my OB/Gyn was on holidays) decided that he would remove the stitch, keep me in overnight and decide in the morning whether to induce then or on Monday at 37 weeks. We now know that this was the wrong decision. Friday morning and Alanah had an excellent CTG, my blood pressure had come down to 145/90 but still had swelling and ++ protein. So I was sent home with urine sticks and told to come in Monday to have my baby. My protein remained the same on Friday but by Saturday was down to +, I took this as a good sign. I spent the weekend finally making some preparations for Alanah. Up to this point, I had been working full-time (something I hope I will be able to forgive myself for at some stage as I had been advised to stop by my OB/Gyn at 21 weeks) and just hadn't done anything at all. Matt and the kids and I were so excited, we were finally going to meet this long-awaited completion of our family. Monday morning I was up at about 2am, unable to sleep, so I was on the Internet reading birth stories, I remember reading the title of one about stillbirth and skipping over it, because that could never happen to me. I also remember that my belly felt really strange, sort of hard and really heavy, I assumed it was because Alanah had engaged even more. I presented at the hospital at 7:30am and Matt ran the kids round to the day-care Mum's. Our wonderful midwife, Jan took me into the labour ward and immediately hooked me up to the CTG. Well, she couldn't find a heartbeat and told me it was just that she was tired, at this stage I wasn't really that worried. She left the room and while I was waiting for Matt to come back I tried poking and prodding her but all with no response, by the time Matt arrived I just knew she was dead. The Dr then arrived and tried again to find her heartbeat but to no avail and then he said the words I will never forget "I'm terribly sorry I can't find a heartbeat, it appears we've lost the baby". He was so full of remorse, blaming himself. It was no-one's fault. We then had to wait to have it confirmed by ultrasound before induction could begin. At this stage we had to start letting people know, how were we going to tell the kids that the baby I had promised them not an hour ago was not going to stay. We had our loss confirmed by ultrasound at 9:15am then had the gel inserted. Mild, sporadic contractions followed until 1:30pm when the Dr returned to break my waters. Boy did they hot up then, but the epidural was in within half an hour and that made things so much easier. Anyway it seems I only had about 10 real contractions and then I began pushing, three pushes later and our little angel was born. The thing that still really gets to me was the deafening SILENCE. Birth and death should never go hand in hand, my son screamed the place down when he was born and I just couldn't believe how completely different this was. I also wasn't prepared for how perfect she would be. I felt (and still feel) really guilty that my birth was so easy, I feel I should have had a terrible amount of pain and trauma to match the emotional pain that I was going through. We then began the painful task of saying hello and goodbye to our darling little girl at the same time, My brother summed it up with the opening line to his poem. “Why O Why did you have to go? When all we wanted was to say hello” Somehow We managed to get through the day but only with the unfailing help of Jan, without her we would have fallen in a big heap, she made sure we did all the little things we would never have thought of, having never been in the situation before. Thanks to Jan we now have numerous foot and handprints, in ink and plaster, hair clippings, too many photos to count, a video of the birth and the blessing, her bracelets, her measuring tape and the presents that Alanah’s big sister and brother, Jacinta and Jared had brought for her. We also have the wonderful 6 hours or so that we spent with Alanah and in that time she met and cuddled almost every single person who would have been important in her life, Mummy & Daddy, big Sissy and Brother, Grandma & Gandie, All her uncles and aunties and her Godparents. We let her go back to the hospital staff at about 8:45pm Monday night so that she could be taken for an autopsy, as there had been no indication at all of what could have caused Alanah’s death, there hadn’t even been meconium in the waters, so there were no signs of stress at all, like she’d just gone to sleep and never again awoken. Matt's parents and grandparents arrived as soon as they possibly could and were back in Queensland from Victoria by Wednesday afternoon. This was great as it meant Alanah got to met her Nan and Pop and Great Nan. Great Pop was there also. We buried Alanah on Saturday 15th January. It was a gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky. We had a traditional church service but instead of having biblical readings we had verses by Helen Steiner Rice. At the gravesite service we played “A Little Ray of Sunshine” and Alanah’s Uncle Steve read a poem he had written on the night he had found out about his niece, this was especially lovely because my brother has never before even written a postcard in his life! There were so many people there, I was amazed that the passing of one perfect little life could affect so many different people. We are three months down the road to healing and with the love and support of each other, and the additional support provided by our wonderful families and fantastic friends I think we are slowly getting there. They say things like this sort out your real family and friends and I am really pleased to say that we have lost very, very few , if any, of either. The other side, that nobody ever seems to mention are the new friends you make with people have experienced like situations, and these will be life-long friendships. The pain hasn’t gone away, it never will and I don’t really want it too, it’s something special I have for Alanah. We now find ourselves wanting another baby, Not Alanah we know we can’t have her and she has her own special place in the family. We already have three children but now we want four. Because of this I have been seeing numerous specialists to try and find out why my pre-eclampsia would rise so quickly to a level that would kill a baby, and why it was getting progressively worse with each pregnancy. I was found to have a deficiency in Protein S and a heterozygenous mutation of Factor V Leiden . Both of these leads to a severe pre-disposition for blood clotting. Which in turn causes hypertension and pre-eclampsia. So now we have a plan in place for the next pregnancy when and if it occurs and overall I am feeling quietly confident if not a little, well a lot really, scared. Of course this experience is one that I would have given anything to avoid and only wish that nobody else would ever have to endure this type of grief. But we do have to go on, and I truly believe that it makes us better people, we really know what matters in life now. I hope that reading my story helps just one person going through the same pain in the same manner that reading everyone else’s stories helped me. I also hope that anyone reading it who hasn’t experienced such a loss becomes more aware that stillbirth is not fairy tale, it still does happen these days, and it happens at full term, and it happens without apparent cause. Very rarely ,of course, but it does happen. Baylee Michelle Bond May 15, 2000 Baylee’s pregnancy did not start well and continued down that path to delivery and beyond. Just a bit of background I have had 3 miscarriages in the past, 14 months of unexplained infertility that resulted in an assisted pregnancy which we unfortunately lost at 37 weeks , Alanah Rose was just our little angel to special to keep. After seeing countless doctors after Alanah’s Death it was found that I have a Factor V Leiden mutation and severe lack of Protein S both bound and unbound, unfortunately these lead to blood clotting disorders which in turn led to the Pre-eclampsia that took Alanah’s life. We were very lucky and conceived first try with Baylee, then began the daily injections of clexane and aspirin therapy. We made it through the first 12 weeks with only one small bleed. Then had a scare at 14 weeks with a show, contractions and no movement. Then we had the cervical suture in place also at 14 weeks, all went well. We had our 18 week scan and were told we would be having another little boy. No abnormalities baby growing well. There was a bit of concern with pre-labour at 22 wks so went for another scan, once again everything fine , a boy. Blood pressure rising, swelling small amounts of protein being dropped so at 27 wks and still everything AOK and a Boy. At 31 week, my local doctor panicked with high BP, swelling and high protein so it was decided to send me to Brisbane with the idea I would hopefully to deliver at 36 wks if all went well. Well it didn’t, I developed gestation diabetes, my amniotic fluid levels dropped lower than 10 and baby’s heartbeat was severely tachycardic at over 210bpm for 20 min at a time (Alanah did this and they told me not to worry about it!) Also the movements were very fierce almost like she was fitting. My wonderful OB Dr Scott Salisbury said well things aren’t quite right and we’ll go on mother intuition and schedule you for a c_section at 3 this afternoon. Wouldn’t you know it I went into labour naturally 1.5 hours before the operation. Baylee Michelle Bond made it into the cold world at 1531pm on 16/10/00 weighing 3lb 12oz (1700g) at 32wks. She came out screaming, the most glorious sound in the world. Baylee is now 6 months a little small but is in the 25 percentile charts, she is rolling both ways and sitting-up, madly try to stand Having Baylee has eased the pain of losing Alanah a whole lot, but there’s still a hole that will never be filled again, we have an angel child and we are so proud of her. Kerri Bond Mummy to Jacinta (9)one month ttc, Jared (3)one month ttc and Alanah Rose (sb 10 Jan 2000 37wks - pre-eclampsia) 14 months ttc and 3 angels (9wks 06/90, 7.5wks 01/92 & 13.5wks 04/98)2 months ttc SPALS miracle Baylee Michelle 16 November 2000 at 32 weeks Back to Our Stories
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