Our Journey To Oz By Sophie Ryan

Pregnancy wasn’t great for me, I started out with bad sickness, constipation, swelling, etc. You name it I had it. At 14 weeks I found out I was having a boy, my first boy after 2 girls, 2 completely normal pregnancies. He was all I ever wanted, dreamed of. I was under a ridiculous amount of stress with work during my first/second trimester and at 23 (+6) weeks my whole world flipped upside down when my waters broke. I was told that I could go into labour at any time, and it was a waiting game. I was sent home after 3 days with no information apart from appointments for regular checks at the hospital. I attended the hospital twice a week to check on my baby and to monitor my infection marker. My mental health declined rapidly, for the first few weeks I spent them in bed, crying and planning my life without a baby I had not even met. The further along I got, the more I leaked, the more I worried but every scan was showing a small amount of fluid and a happy baby - I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I was going to lose him.

9 weeks passed from my waters breaking. I had a few scares before this point but was always reassured and sent away with a healthy CTG.

At 31+6 I woke up to go to the toilet, my fluid had changed colour. It was pink. Pink meant blood. I immediately rang triage and went in to be monitored. The baby was happy and my fluid had changed back to clear. I was sent away being told that it was irritation. Another week passed and at 32+6 I started bleeding again, this time it was redder again. I rang triage and went in. I was admitted to the hospital this time to monitor my loss and my baby. 24 hours passed and a consultant came to see me. He said they were going to push to get me to my planned section date in which I would have been 35+5. I expressed concerns that something was obviously changing with a new symptom occurring. The doctor agreed and went away. Within 10 minutes he was back and told me we were on the list for a c-section the following day! My head was spinning. I was finally going to meet my baby, but would all my fears become reality? The doctor reassured me that as we had steroids at the time my waters broke and had remained with fluid during the scans, he was hopeful everything would be okay.

Another 24 hours passed and the following morning at 11 am my beautiful son Ozzy was brought into the world kicking and screaming after 9 weeks of constant worry and anxiety which led to this penultimate moment. My baby was here, and he was amazing, weighing in at 4lb 7oz born on Easter Sunday. Ozzy required minimal help and just needed to learn to feed and grow! We graduated from the NICU after 2 weeks.

Ozzy is thriving and growing every day and I can’t thank Ciara from Little Heartbeats enough for all of the advice and help she have me throughout. It was the toughest journey I have ever been on, but I fought as hard as I could for son. Regardless, I would have never given up on him and I believe that he knew this and fought just as hard as I did. Thank you from the bottom of my heart Little Heartbeats!

By Sophie Ryan