It was my first pregnancy. It was 10 days late. I went into labour naturally at about 5am and was properly in labour at about 11am.
I had Milli at home and it was just textbook. I had two midwives here and she was born at about 4.45pm.
I was congratulating myself about how well it went. I didn’t get any drugs and within half an hour of the birth I was tucked up in bed with toast.
The next day my friend remarked that Milli was sleeping quite a lot. That was about 12pm. The midwife came at about 2pm and said she would strip her off do all the normal checks. We took her upstairs where it was a bit cooler. She wasn’t overly concerned. She did all the normal 24-hour checks. It was while she was doing that, just out of nowhere, she said: “She looks slightly pale.” Within a minute of that my daughter had gone blue and stopped breathing.
Her lips turned blue and I was in absolute panic. The midwife Sue had her in her arms and she said: “She’s not breathing.” She tried to put one of those spatulas down her airway, thought maybe her tongue had fallen back.
My friend Liz called the ambulance. It took 19 minutes. They [the ambulance staff] were talking to her the whole time, I could hear them asking was there somewhere for the helicopter to land. I was just screaming to them: “Just get here, just get here.”
The ambulance and the helicopter arrived at the same time. Suddenly there were five people in the landing with massive bags of kit. They put Milli on the floor and started.
I couldn’t cope and went out on the landing and one of the ambulance guys, Ben, came out and explained what was going on. I didn’t know what was going on, it was my first child, I didn’t have a clue. I wasn’t even dressed, I was still bleeding. He [Ben] held my hand the entire time. I just kept saying over and over “I can’t lose her, I’ve just got her”. I really thought then she was being taken from me so early. It was beyond terrifying and I was so helpless.
It was the worst day of my life. I was absolutely panic-stricken. I phoned Rob [my husband] and said: “She’s stopped breathing, she’s stopped breathing. You have got to get here.” And hung up.
The fact I had her at home and that a midwife was coming round was probably what saved her as well as of course the paramedics and the doctor who recognised that her glucose levels had dropped. They couldn’t get a vein because she was so small, so they got what they call pins into her bone marrow in her femur and injected the glucose into her until they felt like they stabilised her. She still has the bumps on her legs where they did that.
What we know now is that Milli has a rare condition called hypopituitarism. The anterior and posterior part of the pituitary gland, which is the size of a fingernail, were millimetres off centre and she couldn’t produce Cortisol.
Cortisol is a stress hormone. She had enough when she was born from me, but what we didn’t know at the time was she couldn’t produce it and it was tailing off. They didn’t discover it in the first MRI and when they did they told us it was serious and permanent but treatable. All I could focus on was ‘it’s treatable’ and Milli has to get cortisol four times a day for the rest of her life.
Milli was in hospital, first in Addenbrookes intensive care and then in the neonatal intensive car and then special care baby unit for three weeks and everyone was absolutely so amazing. They didn’t just look after Milli, but me. For the first three or four days I just sat by the incubator and cried and cried.The Essex and Herts air ambulance service is a charity and people don’t know that and they need our support. They need £6m a year. You see them collecting outside the shops but you are oblivious until you need them and then they appear out of nowhere.
As long as we are alive, we can’t repay them enough. Without them Milli wouldn’t be here.
