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2 weeks ago I had given birth to a beautiful baby girl, weighing 6lb 10z I was induced due to having oc,4 days later I was aloud home, things were going smoothly but Freya woke every hour for a feed as well as bringing back up a few feeds.I just put it to the back of my head, things will start getting better, thought this was normal and things would settle down. We had just started to get into a routine, I had just finished breast feeding her while I was catching up on the soaps that I had missed it was 10.30pm.
Patting my daughters back she brought some wind up, and then got comfortable on me and off to sleep she went, little did I know that the next time I saw her she wouldn’t be able to breath!
About 20 minutes later she started ‘Arching her back,flipping her head back!’
I didn’t think anything off it, I just gentle removed her from my shoulder to see if she was OK. All I saw was my daughter struggling to breath making grunting noises. Her tongue sticking out and her eyes sticking out like they were going to pop with pressure! she was foaming from the mouth, I thought she had swallowed her tongue so I tried to flick it forward, 3 times I attempted this, yet it did nothing! If anything it made her worse she stopped making grunting noises and become floppy and grey, her lips turned blue I ‘Screamed for my mum’ she came running down the stairs not knowing what she was going to walk into! I handed her a unresponsive baby!
My sister was on the phone to the ambulance, screaming to them making no sense, My brother had just got home he had walked into a horror seen he phoned for another ambulance while my mom was battling to save my little girl.
Blood started to drip out of my little girls mouth,I honestly thought this was it Ive lost my daughter.
Luckily my mom being a nurse and also knowing what recover position to put a baby in (due to my twin sister dieing on her numerous times, she knew what to do) started to see little improvements, I would hear little cries then she would stop again and it would go silent!
Paramedics turned up 25 minutes later since I had been on the phone to them, 1 van and 3 first response! Around 11.18pm they got to us they took my daughter off my mom and began to put things down her throat trying to clear her airway and also sucking the foam and blood out at the same time.
I don’t really remember the next bit, my sister came with me in the ambulance while my mom drove up with my brother behind,
The next thing i knew we were in A & E resus. Freya was laying on a hospital bed that was way to big for her but she was hardly moving still, the paramedic still didn’t leave her side he was still sucking all the foam away.
A pediatric came down almost instantly stripped her off, The first thing you saw was how discoloured she was, she was a horrible grayish and a tinge of blue, her neck was really swollen like she had swallowed two tennis balls, there was feces all up her tummy and back which i got told is normal for people when there in shock it instantly happens.
The pediatric took her away for a few hours, the next time I saw him was when he came down to talk to me.He said she is stable but is still struggling to breath were her tongue has swelled up but she is trying to cry which is a good sign!
He took me to kipling ward (children’s ward) were my daughter was laying inside a crib with wires hooked up to her, monitors beeping every few seconds, The nurses had made a bed for me, But I couldn’t sleep I was to scared she was going to go on me, every hour a nurse would come in a prick her heal I forgot how many times they actually came in to do this, but each result came back as a false reading, so the pediatric came back and said were going to take a full blood test off her.
I Remember texting my bump buddy (steive whitecross) at the time letting her know what had happened, she also told me she was in early signs of labor and the first thing that came into my mind ‘A baby dies as another one is born’ I know that’s horrible but this is how I felt and was thinking.
The next day had came and she was still here, still very discoloured but more responsive.
My mom came back up she brought some refreshments for me and Freya, My dad then walked in the room (there not together) After seeing how things were he said ‘Happy birthday to my mum’.
I completely forgot it was my mums birthday,what a horrible experience for my mom a day she will never forget! Yet I couldn’t thank her enough if it wasn’t for her Freya wouldn’t be alive today.
Around lunch time we got the results of Freya’s bloods we were told she had ‘an under active thyroid’ i hadn’t a clue what it was,how she got it, what it does. Was it important??
She started medication straight away and we were to see the consultant tomorrow who told us that she has no thyroid,the thyroid is to stimulate metabolism and along with the parathyroid glands,controls the body’s circulating calcium levels.
They think this triggered the choking episode.
She was put on to levothyroxine she had to have it everyday for the rest of her life she had blood tests every week as her levels were so high it was dangerous, we got told it was meant to be under 5 and hers was 350. Quite a shock!
Freya is now 15 months old and has blood tests every month due to her growing so it is not able to control just yet, she has to go for scans as they are still trying to figure out if she has the thyroid gland at all, it could also stop her from becoming pregnant,were battling constipation at the moment which is common.
When they started to high liver results from her blood tests which they sent her bloods of to another lab.
Which they came back with one answer to it all she could have liver disease there is a name for it but I haven’t a clue how to spell it,
She has just been tested for it and we just got the news back a few days ago, she’s all CLEAR! I was so happy and relieved. She has been through so much yet she doesn’t even know. This was just the first year of her life!
Theres alot more to an under active thyroid then i knew of,I’m constantly finding new things about it, I now know the signs when her levels are very high and she needs her medication to be higher, My little miracle!
Thank for reading sorry its very long.
Tracy and Freya x
