14-8-2009 - Finley

My mood while writing this blog: Sad

Hi,

I want to start off by saying a big thank you to all of you that have sent me messages in the last couple of weeks. It means a lot :-)

I apologise in advance as I am about to repeat everything you already know, lol.

Basically I went for my 20 week scan on August 3rd and was told that it looked like my baby boy had a problem with his heart. The hospital arranged for us to go to Guys and St Thomas hospital in London to see a fetal heart specialist. So on August 4th we went to the hospital and had a detailed scan of Finleys heart. It took about 30 - 45 minutes and I spent the whole time hoping he would be ok but afterwards they took us off into a little room and broke my heart... The consultant said that Finley had a severe congenital heart defect, the diagnoses was Critical Aortic Stenosis and Endocardial-fibroelastosis of the left ventricle. This means that the left side of his heart is not working properly. The mitral and aortic valves on the left side were extremely narrow so the blood was unable to flow properly and the left ventricle wasn't contracting properly. We were told that if we continued with the pregnancy he would need a lot of surgery, he would need open heart surgery at 2-3 days old and if he survived that he would need further open heart surgery at 3 and 5 years old and then a heart and lung transplant before he was a teenager. We were told that the outlook for babies like Finley with such severe problems was pretty poor and he would spend a lot of his life in hospital. We decided that it would be unfair to put our son through all this and came to the painful decision to end the pregnancy.

On August 7th we went into hospital so I could be induced. They gave me a pessary at around 12.30pm and within about 20 minutes I started getting what felt like bad period pain and about 30 minutes later the contractions started. I was told they are as painful as full term labour but they don't last as long as the cervix doesn't have to dilate as much! After about an hour I needed some pain relief and they offered me morphine. They don't usually give you this in labour but I guess it doesn't really matter if your baby will be stillborn. After the morphine shot they took me to the delivery room so I could have gas and air too - that stuff is awesome!! Anyway after 6 hours of labour Finley was born. I didn't hold him straight away as I still had to get the placenta out and it took a while. I think that night I was just so numb and dazed by it all that it didn't really hit me. DF's parents came in to see Finley but they didn't stay too long as I was exhausted. Saturday morning was a different story, they brought Finley back to us in the morning and he was so cold. My mum came to visit and it was so sad to see her holding what should of been her 5th grandchild (I have lost 3 now and my sister 2). We finally left the hospital with hand and foot prints and a little card with Finleys name, date of birth and weight on it (13 and a half ounces). I think leaving him was the hardest thing I have ever done, as it was a weekend he was at the hospital all weekend before going off for an autopsy on monday. Sunday was a tough day - I wanted to go back and cuddle him so much but I just couldn't say goodbye again!

I miss my little boy so badly but I know we did the right thing for him, surely it's better that we suffer than him suffering?

I would like to thank Jenny and Rach for all their support on facebook xxx