Thomas had cluster fed until around 2am on Saturday. I popped him back down in his moses basket next to me and fell to sleep. Surprisingly, I was woken by Lucy and Oliver the next morning. Seeing Thomas still asleep, I signalled to them to keep quiet and took them downstairs for breakfast. When Thomas was still asleep at 9, I felt that I should wake him to give him some milk. Whilst he wasn't interested in feeding, he was otherwise OK, alert and content in himself. I continued trying to feed him through the morning, but when Wycombe Birth Centre phoned, they suggested we come in for skin test for jaundice. Jaundice had been highlighted to us at all of his postnatal checks since his birth, due to his colouring, and we had also been monitored for it with Lucy. I knew that it can cause babies to be more drowsy and can also mean they are not as interested in feeding. Whilst Thomas' results showed slightly elevated levels, there wasn't cause for a blood test. It was suggested that I tried to express and syringe feed him to give him some energy to feed himself. As time ticked on, the milk he was taking didn't seem to be having the expected effect and he started throwing himself awkwardly backwards. The midwife took his temperature and it had started to rise.
The midwife logged on to the system to look at my medical notes and saw that I had tested positive for Group B Strep (GBS) earlier that week. She put in a quick call to the paediatricians at Stoke Mandeville and came back to take Thomas' temperature again. It had gone up in just that small period of time. She called for an ambulance to transfer us to Stoke Mandeville in Aylesbury. We waited for another midwife to arrive to escort us and as we were ushered on to the ambulance, she told me not to be alarmed, hopefully Thomas would be fine, but that when medical professionals hear GBS, they may be in a state of alert, but most of the time it is just precautionary. Without further knowledge, I took this on board and calmly went in the ambulance with Thomas. There was even discussion over whether or not they needed to use the blue lights, so any sense of concern never seemed to build.
When we found ourselves on the postnatal ward in the hospital, I waited at the side of the bed with Thomas, but before we had barely put our bags down, one of the doctors was over reviewing Thomas. As she made her medical checks, succinctly but caringly, she rattled through to me a precise understanding of Thomas' day. As she concluded, she looked directly at me and told me that Thomas was very poorly and she would need to take him straight down to the Neonatal Unit at the hospital. I grabbed my bag and rushed along behind her. She was running through the warren of corridors and doors, my baby boy lying in the crib beside her, who had by now started to have regular seizures. All of a sudden, a sense of fright took hold of me. This was getting serious. I was worried for what lay ahead, entering into a world of which I had no knowledge.
In a bid to prepare me a little as to what to expect, she told me that when we arrived, I may be alarmed by the number of medical staff and the sense of urgency that they would be working. She reassured me that this was standard practice for a new baby arriving on the neonatal ward and that once Thomas was connected up and stabilised, they would be able to talk through with me, where Thomas was and the treatment he was having.
I stood calmly and silently in the corner of his room. I squished myself in as far as possible to ensure that I did not get in anyone's way, and I watched. It was a hub of action stations and processes. Each person in the room filled me with confidence in knowing what they were doing and all of a sudden my beautiful boy had been stripped and connected. The panic in me started to ebb; yes, we had been rushed into the Neonatal Unit, but there had been a series of stages in that journey, and so the gradual, albeit rapid, process had made it feel more reasonable. The manner of the staff, taking each situation in their strides, along the way, had also given it all a more normal feel, as if this was routine, therefore quickly negating any anxiety that may have built. He was in the best place and was getting the best care, but he was no longer in my care; the arms of his mother, at just three days old.
Very soon after, the doctor turned to us and provided an explanation. Thomas was showing signs of a GBS infection, so they were intensively treating him with antibiotics. They had sedated him and given him other drugs to help reduce his seizures. They explained what purpose all of the instruments performed and reassured us that they were doing all they possibly could for him. They also wanted to put a more "secure" line into him. This would involve putting one in through his belly button, which only a few days before had been his lifeline inside me. For this, they would need to remove the stump that remained and they suggested that we may wish to wait in the family room whilst the procedure was being performed, but that they would call us back in once they had done it. The thought of them removing a part of him (however small, or whether it would drop off sooner or later) upset me. That stump was part of him, and had provided him with absolutely everything he had needed to develop into the perfect baby that he was, as well as being such a binding connection to me. It symbolised so much. They could put needles and tubes into him, but it seemed more of an invasion to take a part of him away. I knew, however, it was for his best.
As we were taken through, the doctor suggested that, whilst I was waiting, I didn't Google GBS. She said that what I might find may panic me and at this stage we had no idea what the outcome for Thomas was likely to be. I followed her advice. My ignorance played in my favour.
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