An Unplanned Weekend

I finished work early, ready for the weekend on Friday 10^th January, my children were staying with us that weekend so I was looking forward to spending time with them and Amanda.  The weekend started like any other, the children went to visit their grandparents for a while and as it was Amanda’s daughter’s birthday on the Saturday and as she was going to be with her father on her birthday, we had a Chinese takeaway the night before.  We had some problems with the sealant around the bath and the ceiling started to leak – Amanda become unusually stressed by it, eventually it stopped and we accepted that the bathroom would require some attention.  Saturday morning came and went… one of my sons wanted to go for a swim so I took him to a pool at my gym a few miles away.  Amanda was at home doing her normal things like cooking and housework.  Amanda had asked me to get some shopping from the supermarket which is situated just over the road from the swimming pool, after we had spent some time in the pool and showered, I checked my mobile phone as I was walking across the car park.  I couldn’t believe what I was reading.  Amanda had text saying that ‘Her waters had broken, her dad had taken her to Kettering General Hospital and to get someone to stay with the children so I could get there’.  My son was speaking to me at the time, no doubt about the latest Xbox game he wanted…. I remember being in a real fluster, he asked me why I was acting weird… I couldn’t tell him.  This was obviously not a good situation, the baby was only 25 weeks gestation, this wasn’t right, this surely wasn’t actually happening.  We had been to a scan only a few days before… they told us everything was just fine.

I rushed around frantically finding places for the children to stay.  I drove the 6 mile journey to the hospital, took a few minutes to park and find which ward Amanda was on.  She was sitting up in bed, typically trying to tell me not to worry and that everything will be OK.  My first thoughts being ‘well, thankfully she is in the right place, the doctors and consultants will know what to do’.  I was reassured by nurses that all was as fine as it could be and that Amanda would be monitored over the next few hours.  I was told that although her waters had broken there was still plenty left and would replenish themselves therefore the baby was in no immediate danger.  As it was a Saturday afternoon, they had no intention of scanning Amanda until Monday morning.  I was not happy about this, I couldn’t believe it in fact but I am not a medical professional, I was being assured that is normal practice and that the best thing for Amanda and the baby was hospital rest.  Perhaps naively, I didn’t think in the medical world there was any difference between a Monday morning, a Saturday afternoon or Christmas Day.  As I stated above, there was nothing to suggest that I should have been insistent on scanning her that afternoon but clearly there was every need.  When my other children were born, the early part of labour was straight forward so I didn’t really have any knowledge of what to expect when things are not as it should be.  Amanda was clearly tired, troubled and needed sleep.  I left the hospital and went to check on the children who were with their respective grandparents.  My sons had bought me an iTunes voucher for Christmas, I used it to purchase the Olly Murs Greatest Hits album on my iPhone – I constantly played his huge, then recent hit ‘Dear Darlin’ while I was driving around over the coming days a lot of the time whilst in floods of tears.  The words became very poignant as time moved on, to this day I still am emotional when I hear this song and my world stands still.  I tried to be as normal as possible, I wasn’t coping very well though and as the house was so empty and lonely I decided to go to my local club for a quiet drink.  I sat in the corner on my own, a couple of friends came over and asked what was wrong.  They were close to Amanda so they knew of the events in London.  They assured me that she was in the hands of medical professionals and they knew what they were doing.  Although I was wracked with worry, I took comfort from her being in the best place, it seemed a lot better than her being at home.  It didn’t feel right me being out enjoying a quiet pint of beer when she was in hospital, I went home and tried to sleep.

I woke after a couple of hours sleep on the Sunday morning.  I rang the hospital immediately and I managed to speak with someone with seniority in the ward.  I was told that Amanda had a restful night and I was to stop worrying.  I felt somewhat more confident now, I believed that the baby was still in no immediate danger.  To add to my confidence, Amanda also said that although she wouldn’t be officially scanned until the next day, she was observed by night staff in the early hours and the baby’s heartbeat was located and found to be normal.  As the Sunday progressed it became clear that the medical team wanted to move Amanda to a bigger, more equipped hospital such as at Leicester, Coventry or even Nottingham.  This I was assured by the medical team was purely because the baby was not quite 26 weeks gestation and the larger hospitals have better premature baby facilities.  Once we had reached 26 weeks which I believe was Wednesday 15^th January, Amanda could potentially be moved back to Kettering.  We were waiting for a bed to be made available at one of the hospitals but Amanda could only be transferred to the larger hospital during daylight hours – I never have understood the reasoning of that.  I was told to be prepared for Amanda to be in hospital for a substantial period of time, so I made preparations for childcare and informed my bosses that I would need to work around the schools so perhaps would only be in the office between late morning and early afternoon.  Sunday night came and went, I had the youngest children at home, tried to keep everything as normal as it could be and answered any questions they had.