A week ago we welcomed our fourth child in to the world, it’s hard to imagine that when I started this blog it was initially only about my family with two children but now year after year we welcome new additions, this however, will be the last!

So we welcome baby Jasper; a very healthy 6lb13 boy, born boy planned c section at 38weeks.

If you’re any thing like me then you will enjoy a good birth story (I think it’s a female thing!) after suffering with gestational diabetes that was insulin controlled protocol at my local maternity unit is that a baby should be delivered before 39weeks, as I have had two previous sections this was booked in for the 2nd March when Jasper would be 38+3. Even though people would argue this is a “term” baby, there is actual research now that calls them “early term” babies. After all babies generally naturally come on their own when they are ready and not rudely stolen from the womb!

Because of this new procedure, I was to be admitted to hospital 48hours prior to having the c section so that I could receive a full course of steroids, this was to make sure that Jasper’s lungs were mature enough for breathing on his own and also because he is a section baby they have a rough time clearing the mucus from their lungs, so we needed them to be as strong as possible.

If you’ve ever had to have steroid injections you will know how painful they are – I’ve always thought my pain threshold was good but, no. They really do hurt, a lot! And your leg is completely dead for a while after. It’s all for a good cause of course so, I grinned and bared it. Over the next 48hours I experienced some horrible side effects to the injections because of my diabetes, the steroids send your sugars sky high after about 6-8 hours. The tell tale sign that I get is a headache, an intense pain in my temples and I could feed it creeping on. Sure enough at 8 hours post injection my sugars had shot up to 12, 10 is the cut off point. As it was I was already checking my sugar levels every 2 hours all through the day and night but now it had to be hourly. I was to wait another hour and retest. Thankfully after an hour it had dropped to 9.9 right on the cusp of needing insulin on a sliding scale to control everything. This happened a few times over the 24 Hours so once they were over with, I could breathe a huge sigh of relief.

Friday rolls around and I am ready to have this baby! I’ve been hooked up to monitors, baby is happy it was time to get him out. The nerves Start to kick in when you’re sitting on the operating table waiting for your spinal block. The injection itself, for me, has never been pleasant. And this time was no exception.

The needle they insert into your back they can never seem to get right and I end up with electric shocks down one or both legs, this time it was my left leg and it was so painful! She then had to slowly reposition the needle and as a result she numbed my whole body extremely high up, this was fine though!

After a lot of tugging and pulling me about baby Jasper entered the world, the recovery and Soaking up this new baby bubble could begin. But it didn’t!

That night; after I had finally got up for my first shower, I started to have chest pains. If we rewind back to when I had Ralph the previous year, 3 days after having him I was back in hospital with bi lateral clots on my lungs. It’s pretty scary stuff. Two weeks prior to having jasper I saw my haematologist who told me if I were to suffer a third pulmonary embolism (I’ve already had two episodes since 2012) it would be fatal. At 26 I was not expecting to hear that. She made it very clear on the dose of blood thinners I had been taking throughout pregnancy should be quadrupled until after I see her again in may.

Back to that night … there I was chest pains and panic with my newborn, I told my midwife Danielle (who by the way was out of this world amazing!) and she set to work straight away in bleeping doctors. She kept me so calm and then she hooked me up to the ECG monitor to check my heart rate. We were laughing at the time because I was SO sweaty (post baby hormones and water leaving your body – not fun!) the stickers wouldn’t stick, and in the end I was just laying there with no top, no bra my massive iodine stained baby pooch on show and about 5 doctors standing round me. Needless to say, when you have children your dignity leaves you at the door!

I was then wheeled down to X-ray for an urgent X-ray of my chest. I couldn’t walk, it felt like my insides where trying to escape through my vagina and someone had cruelly stabbed my stomach, which they effectively had done!

The porter wasn’t kind to me, she wheeled me formula 1 style over the bumps and lumps of the corridors. By this point I was exhausted, so sore and so fed up. It was easily about midnight.

I was continually monitored and poked all night long. I had a little cry and phoned Steven, I was so so fed up. Jasper was also monitored constantly due to my diabetes so he was pricked to test his sugars and was on NAS observations to check for withdrawal from my medication. He seemed fine at first but then he started withdrawing, and it wasn’t good.

TBC