New Mum Stories: Autumn’s Mummy Blog

Hello and welcome back to New Mum Stories. This week’s story is from Laura over at Autumn’s Mummy Blog. Laura shares with us her story of gorgeous little Autumn’s scary first few weeks for every mother.

Over to you Laura…

My new Mum story is a little dramatic and might be triggering for some, but it shows that it’s never too early to trust your instincts when it comes to your baby!

Autumn and her mummy

 

Autumn was born full-term in September 2016 after an uncomfortable but normal pregnancy, with scans that were fine and when she was born she had an Apgar score of 10/10. Everything was going so well, she was gaining weight and was doing everything she should be. On the morning she turned two weeks old, I remember sitting in bed breastfeeding her and looking down at her thinking just how lucky I was and that things almost seemed too good to be true.

That evening she projectile vomited after I fed her. “Ooh! You were too greedy!” I said to her, but I already felt like something was a little bit wrong. It was projectile, not like normal baby sick and she looked shocked afterwards. The same happened after the next feed and the next and the next after that. By then, it was morning and she was lethargic, so I rang the doctors. By the second time she’d been sick my Mummy alarm bells were ringing and I knew something was wrong!

We went to the doctors and she was checked over. Everything seemed fine and we were told to monitor her and call 111 if things changed and we were concerned. An hour later, I rang 111 and paramedics came to check her. Again, everything seemed fine, but they made another appointment to see the doctor that evening. By the time we went to see him again, Autumn had a dirty nappy that was very wrong – it was the colour of meconium (baby’s first poo, which she’d stopped doing at 2 days old), liquid and foul-smelling. He immediately rang the hospital, where we went and she was put on close watch.

The next day, she was able to keep very small feeds down and we were moved into a room with her on the normal children’s ward. However, the foul nappies were still the same and then the following day in the afternoon I noticed she was grunting. “Why does she keep grunting?” I said to my husband. “Maybe she’s just having a poo” he said. It had been going on for over 5 minutes though continually. “Go and get a nurse”, I told him, knowing that my instincts had already been right before and they were telling me again that something wasn’t right. The nurse got a doctor and the doctor found that she had a high temperature and was having trouble breathing, so she was moved back under close watch. That night, things were stable but no better, so we were transferred to a London hospital in the middle of the night.

The paediatric Intensive Care Unit were fantastic and a scan showed that she had a cyst approximately 4.5cm squared, which is huge on a baby of only 2-3 weeks old. Under their watch and care over the course of 5 days, her temperature dropped, she regained control of her breathing and her nappy contents became normal again so we were allowed to go home.

Two weeks later, we went back so that they could investigate the cyst and operate on her. They used a keyhole camera first, which showed them that it was attached to the ovary and was very mobile. They could move it by pressing on her tummy and it had wrapped itself around the ovary and killed it off. They now think the vomiting and odd nappies were a stress response mimicking sepsis which was caused by the ovary dying. They did open surgery to remove the cyst and ovary and after a couple of days as well as morphine and Calpol, she had recovered enough to go home.

After a rocky and incredibly rare start for a baby and new Mummy, I’m pleased to say that Autumn has been doing very well since the operation and is one of the smiliest babies you could meet! Our situation was awful and has affected me deeply, but it has taught me that we are perhaps connected with our babies deeper than we realise and that we should always trust our instincts!

New Mum Stories: Autumn's Mummy Blog

Thanks Laura for sharing your New Mum Story. She is such a darling.

You can find Laura over at Autumn’s Mummy Blog here:

Blog http://www.autumnsmummyblog.com

Twitter http://twitter.com/Autumns_Mummy

Instagram http://www.instagram.com/autumns_mummy

If you are interested in joining the New Mum Stories series or any have any questions about featuring your story you can contact me at:

rachel@rachelbustin.com

Thanks for stopping by today, as always I love to rad your thoughts.

rachelbustin.com

Thank you for sharing

5 thoughts on “New Mum Stories: Autumn’s Mummy Blog

  1. Thank you for sharing – when your children are unwell it is heart-rending! So good to know that Autumn, having overcome such a worrying start is now a beautiful, little girl who is so much loved by hr family.

  2. Your daughter is so stunning and I wish she has an amazing life as she has one incredible family who for sure look like they love her more than the world! 🙂

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