I had a very normal, straightforward pregnancy. Other than towards the end, my bump wasn’t measuring big enough, so I was sent for 2 growth scans. Both we’re fine and baby was also fine.
I was 40+3 days when I went into labour. My husband drove us to the Birthing Centre at around 3pm and I gave birth to Lexi May at 9.03pm. When the midwife took her from me to weigh her she said “hmmmm, about 6lb I think”, but she was wrong. Lexi was 8lb 2oz!
All was fine. Lexi and myself stayed at the birthing centre overnight as it was quite late by the time everything was sorted after the delivery. The next morning my husband arrived to pick us up and the midwife was checking Lexi before we could go home.
She told us that Lexi looked a bit jaundice, so to go to the local hospital to get her checked out.
We went home, packed her changing bag and off we went, thinking we would be home later that day.
At the hospital, I got signed onto the ward and given a bed. The doctor then came and took Lexi for some blood tests.
My husband had already noticed that Lexi had a rash on her face at the birthing centre and was told it was normal and common, so he asked the doctors about it. They said they would have a look at her and let us know. They brought we back not long after and said they were just waiting for results. She was put onto the mat for phototherapy treatment for her jaundice. Not long after that the doctor came back and said “we’re just taking Lexi for a lumbar puncture’. Away she went, and we just looked at each other not really knowing what was going on and with little explanation!
The nurse then told us that Lexi would need to stay in and on the mat for her jaundice so my husband went home to pack me some things. He returned with my bags but then had to go home as there were no beds for him to stay in on the ward.
Later that evening Lexi was taken down to NICU, I called the nurse and asked what was going on as we hadn’t been told anything at all. She took me down to the NICU where the doctors were waiting for me.
They said they weren’t sure what was wrong but Lexi had some sort of infection so they started a course of IV antibiotics.
When Lexi was 3 days old the consultant came to us and told us that Lexi had a virus called CMV. Over the next couple of days, Lexi had her newborn hearing test and all was fine. She also had a brain scan which was fine. They finished the course of antibiotics, then we were allowed home with a pile of papers about CMV and we had a week to decide if we wanted to go ahead with the treatment, Ganciclovir.
We decided against the treatment, we didn’t really have a lot of information and no one really talked to us about it. She has passed her hearing tests since and is doing amazing, reaching all the developmental milestones. On the last appointment with the paediatrician, we were told that Lexi was born with meningitis and CMV. We’re not sure if they were linked in any way but it was shocking news to us as we hadn’t been told about the meningitis!
Lexi is now almost 14 months old and is doing great!
