Mum Anna says,
“My name is Anna, my partner’s name is Joe & my sons name is Jaxson.
I had a great pregnancy, can’t complain. Only towards the end, I randomly woke up at 3am one morning, started watching telly while eating cheese biscuits (as you do) then I felt the urge like I was weeing, stood up water was everywhere so knew my waters had broke. While I was on the toilet I rang the hospital to explain what had happened and they told me to go in.
I was checked over, they said yes my waters had definitely broke so I was admitted, one doctor came to see me to say I would stay in till the baby was born, another doctor came to say they wanted me to wait until I was 37 weeks. I told her what the other doctor said and she said ‘oh just ignore me then’.
The midwife then came and said we needed to do a swab but said, and I quote, ‘I’m too busy to do it.’ So because I couldn’t reach I had to go to the toilet and ask my partner to do it, which was quite traumatising for us both as, you can imagine, he didn’t want to hurt me.
My mum came to visit me later that day and I was complaining about a rash I had on my side because it was itchy, she said to tell the doctor. When they came on their rounds I mentioned it to them and they confirmed it was shingles so I had to be isolated in a side room and whoever came in, had to be gowned up. I was put on antibiotics and they told me it had to clear before I had the baby.
Me and my partner were fed up, he didn’t have much sleep at all sleeping on the chair so he was due to go home for the night to get a proper sleep before the baby came. I asked if I could go home which was agreed but I had to go back the next day for bloods.
All night the pains were getting stronger, we went back the next day for bloods and told them about the pains. The midwife came back and said I needed to be readmitted. I was put back in the side room and the midwife said a doctor will be in with you in a minute. All thoughts were going through my mind like is there something wrong with the baby they’re not telling me about? The doctor came in and said my swab results had come back and I had tested positive for group B Strep and I needed to be induced.
He asked if I knew what group B Strep was and I said no, all he said was here is a leaflet and you will be induced at 7pm before leaving the room. I had a million things going through my mind and felt sick, I couldn’t bring myself to look at the leaflet because if it was really bad I would of gone into panic mode.
I went into the labour room and was induced at 7pm and I was fully dilated at 3am. He was born 03.23am on the 19.01.2019 weighing 5lb 130z, he was born one day under a month early. Jaxson had to have a canula fitted so he could have antibiotics to bring the levels down and I had to have two injections, one in each leg. After a couple of days Jaxson’s levels had come down so we were allowed to go home and we just had the one home visit like everyone has for the heal prick but had no other follows ups or anything.
It’s scary to think what could of happened if my waters didn’t brake early & we didn’t do the swab!! I’m so glad I found the Group B Strep Support Facebook page to learn more about it & to see I’m not the only one who’s gone through this.”
