Eoin’s mum Lauren writes,
“When we fell pregnant with Eoin we were completely overjoyed, after suffering a previous loss I attended a private clinic every fortnight for reassurance. Everything was normal, absolutely fine.
When I was 36+4 I was standing in the kitchen when I felt a sharp pain and almost a popping sensation. I didn’t think anything of it. I was working full time commuting to work, I just thought perhaps I’d done too much. I went to bed, carried on working the following day when something just didn’t feel right. I was leaking fluid. At the time I didn’t realise, I called the hospital and they said to keep checking but it’s probably nothing – first babies always come late.
I called again at 36+6 telling them I’m sure it’s my waters, I went in to be checked and they said it was my hind waters. I was to go grab my hospital bag and come back in a few hours. When I came back I was booked onto the induction ward. I wasn’t booked into a bed until 11 pm. I was checked again, I was told my waters had gone and I was going to have the gel pessary in a few hours.
At 5 am Eoin’s heart rate wasn’t right, he wasn’t reacting. I stopped feeling him move. The emergency buzzer was sounded, I was told I couldn’t get dressed or walk to the delivery bay – as the baby was coming. I had to call my husband to be at the hospital quick.
Eoin was delivered at 9.54 am with a lot of intervention, I don’t remember him crying. He was placed on my chest by our amazing midwife. When she noticed something was wrong. He was whisked to NICU where he was placed on CPAP and given antibiotics as a precaution. I felt robbed of the newborn cuddles, everything I imagined was gone. I was left in the delivery room after going through the most traumatic thing of my life without my baby. I was told to take as long as we need, I didn’t understand thinking back the severity of what went on.
I sorted myself out and visited him in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. We were separated for five days. I was on a postnatal ward and he was in NICU. He had to undergo various tests, including a lumbar puncture as I had no signs of anything wrong with me. We were told it was sepsis due to group B Strep infection. They did the lumbar puncture to see if it had turned into meningitis. With the correct antibiotics he recovered well, we didn’t have a clue what group B Strep was. We Googled it frantically outside the hospital when he was diagnosed but the figures absolutely terrified us. We had a review with the hospital who concluded there were failings in our care that may not have prevented sepsis due to group B Strep but we would’ve had a chance. Whilst I was swabbed for group B Strep when my waters were suspected to have gone – it wasn’t quick enough. All women should be swabbed close to the end of their pregnancy as I would give anything to have those newborn moments back that I have felt robbed of. He is now a healthy, happy, troublesome almost 2-year-old. Eoin is one of the lucky survivors and I cannot believe as a family we got through it.”
