Dear Rex – His (Dramatic?) Birth Story – Part 1

I’ve tried to start this 3 or 4 times now. I start at 6 pm when Chris and Jaxon dropped me off at the hospital. Then I rewind it and try and include some of the lead-up. Then I come back to it and change it again. So let’s start with the lead-up… 

Now for sure back in December when I held the pregnancy test in my hand I did not expect to deal with being pregnant in a pandemic. With other things going on in our family, Chris and I were the only ones to know and we kept it to ourselves until February after the scan. It was so hard! I wanted to tell my Mum so badly!

Chris created this for our announcement. Whereas with Jaxon’s announcement, I’d had the idea for weeks, with Rex I had no ideas what to do. Chris came up with this so the code on the left side of the laptop screen, it displays “Jaxon’s Clever Counter” which reads “187 sleeps until Christmas Baby” (and actually, in the end, it was only one sleep out!). On the right-hand screen, there’s a google search about “How to be a good big brother” along with our Google Photos with the scan picture (second row down and second in from the left). When we sent it via WhatsApp to some of our family, it ended up compressed so some of the text wasn’t so clear but it did the job once it was explained. Similarly, when it was uploaded to Facebook, it took a little explaining for those who couldn’t read the actual text etc in the picture.

So we fast forward a few weeks, I’m upgraded to “at-risk” and then within a week, schools close and the country is in lockdown. Along with this, partners are no longer allowed to attend scans or antenatal appointments. Also, rules are brought in around being present for the baby’s births too, but we have months before we get to that point so I try not to worry about it.

After a week of “lockdown learning” with Jaxon, Chris starts to cough and because of the rules and the fact he might have symptoms, we had to quarantine for 2 weeks. This means I have to postpone the 20 week scan and other appointments. After a bit of a headache, I manage to get my appointment re-booked and I go for my 20 week scan on the 6th April (I was almost 22 weeks by that point). It was weird going without Chris and then getting home and only being able to show him a photo. There had been rumours that you could video call your partner and show them that way but turned out it was only certain hospitals and Bedford was a No to the video call idea.

While the rest of the world sort of comes to a standstill, we muddle our way through the next few months and I go to appointments by myself and check-in with the midwife to make sure all is going well.

Two days after Jaxon’s birthday (Saturday), I wake up feeling rubbish. There is a longer version of the story and maybe I can come back to that on another post, but the short version is, I ring 111, they send an ambulance, my BP is higher than a kite and the paramedics decide to take me into the hospital to be seen. I’m taken straight to delivery which seemed straight but I’m well looked after. I am having a little freak out that at around 36 weeks they might have to get baby out early if there’s a problem. My BP comes down by itself within a few hours but whereas Chris came with me when something similar happened with Jaxon, he had to stay home this time. (here – turns out it was around 36 weeks then as well!). I’m discharged around 4:30/5 pm but have to come back the next day just for monitoring as well as having a growth scan to check nothing has changed. But again by myself.

There was a miscommunication about when the growth scan would be but it’s booked for the 20th July and that’s where we’ll start part 2 tomorrow.