Behind the word “premature birth” is the hardship that cannot be seen at a glance.
[Premature infants] are not only a few kilograms less than ordinary babies, but also need to experience more pain than ordinary babies suffer.
Today’s story comes from the sharing of a premature mother. Let’s listen to her tell this story about persistence and love.
A few days ago, we celebrated our son’s first birthday. In the neonatal intensive care unit, where he was born, we had a happy cake with the doctors and nurses who had taken care of him for so long.
How many hardships did you go through to protect the fetus?
Since the birth of this little life, it has been full of all kinds of hardships.
It is confirmed that the crisis of threatened abortion after pregnancy is scary, the vomiting in the first three months of pregnancy is miserable, then B-ultrasound shows placental hypothermia, and then the long road of bed rest to protect the fetus starts from the fourth month.
And he did all the food, drink, and scatter on his bed, But they still bleed at every turn, On several occasions, the blood flow reached the point of 120 first aid. Four hospitals were changed before and after to protect the fetus. The 24-hour intravenous drip of Amber every day resulted in the final blue and purple of the hands and arms and the final failure to find blood vessels. The side effects of this intravenous drip caused the heartbeat to accelerate, the hands to shake and the palpitation to remain at about 140 beats per minute, which was even more dangerous for me who had already undergone a major heart operation.
Similarly, every time you get up conveniently, it is a severe test, because you don’t know the consequences of minor activities in how.
Every day was like a battle, wrestling to exhaustion with an invisible enemy. Every day was a count of seconds, knowing that every day passed, the little guy in his stomach would grow up a little and be safer.
Even if it only persists until-28 weeks, he can be counted as a premature infant by medical standards and can at least be preserved.
However, as the number of weeks gets bigger and bigger, the frequency of uterine contractions becomes more and more frequent, and the number of massive bleeding becomes more and more frequent. There is nothing I can do but lie down, eat hard, and then adjust the speed of Amber intravenous drip to the limit I can tolerate.
Even though the doctors and nurses shook their heads when they saw it, the little people in their stomachs seemed to have caught me desperately.
His fetal heart is firm and strong, and his fetal movements are lively and frequent. He pushes his calf hard on my belly to cheer me up every day, as if he were telling me: Hey, I’m here, you have to hold on. After 30 years of living, he has never understood what’s name of persistence. This little fellow taught me not to give up easily.
How fortunate it is that the baby has come to the world.
There was no warning of the morning of the son’s birth.
Just after 26 weeks, I was wondering how many days I could breathe a sigh of relief. A tight uterine contraction suddenly hit. On the way back to B-ultrasound, blood had soaked the hospital bed. I was pushed directly into the operating room, and I was in a coma due to pain. It was also possible that there was too much blood flow and shock.
When I heard the director of obstetrics shouting that the child could not be protected, I tried my best to shout [no surgery, I want to protect the child]. (as if I also said a dirty word, even my usual attributes changed when the situation was urgent…) There were a lot of people around me, my clothes were cut off directly, and I gradually lost consciousness.
When I woke up again, I was in the intensive care unit with a ventilator and my hands and feet tied.
I am familiar with this place. I have had heart surgery last time. (Ventilator insertion and sputum suction are definitely human torture, so don’t try it easily:))
At that time, my heart was bloodless, and all I could think about was the worst results: the child was not saved, and my uterus was gone.
These are all the things the ward rounds used to tell me.
Until the family was allowed to come in and visit, the father of the child told me that our little watermelon was still alive and well.
At that time, it was true that there seemed to be a light and the world was lit up again.
After leaving the intensive care unit, I became a celebrity, and no one dared to scold the chief surgeon before the operation.
The speed of my recovery surprised everyone. After lying in bed for more than two months, my muscles atrophy was severe. Fortunately, it didn’t take long to learn to walk again.
After the baby was born, his body became used by one person, but his spirit became stronger than that of two people. I was discharged from the hospital on the eighth day after giving birth, and the little guy still had to stay in the intensive care unit.
The next test is for him.
Compared with the little guy who has to break through next, it is not what that his mother is offended.
The first time we met, the baby was already full moon.
The son just turned 2 kg when he was born, and his weight dropped to 900 grams at the lightest. It took 17 days to regain his birth weight.
In the first two months, our family was most afraid of receiving a phone call from the hospital, because we didn’t know whether the news we heard was acceptable.
Cerebral hemorrhage, pulmonary hemorrhage, severe infection, apnea, hydrocephalus, gastric retention, hematochezia, etc., etc., they are like mountains, pressing on him together.
However, as strong as he was, he rushed through one pass.
The first meeting with his son was one month later. He needed to come out of the neonatal intensive care unit for brain CT, which took less than ten minutes.
Although I was psychologically prepared, when he really appeared in front of my eyes, I looked at him and what could not say it.
This little person is black and purple, wrapped in huge diapers, wrapped in various pipes and instruments.
His eyes were slightly closed, his nose was wearing a respirator, his mouth was inserted with a stomach tube, and his mouth was constantly foaming at the mouth.
I’m a little confused. Is this my child?
He is not so much a baby as an uncle or an old man who has gone through many vicissitudes. He looks so tired. After coming to this world, he has not experienced any joy, only experienced all kinds of pain and injury.
My brain went blank with the nurse, and his monitoring device kept sounding alarms, reminding us that the baby had forgotten to breathe again. The first real meeting and hugging was two months later, and it was the happiest day of my life.
The son was hospitalized for a total of 110 days and the ventilator was removed several times, but it took more than two months to really remove it.
I often take a two-hour bus and can’t see him. I sit at the door of the intensive care unit and silently cheer for him.
After returning home, I worked hard to suck milk every three hours, nearly an hour at a time. At the same time, the life without complete sleep was rehearsed in advance. Before the child came home, the milk stored for the little fellow filled the three refrigerators of my family, relatives’ family and neighbors’ family.
After being discharged from hospital, the operation followed one after another.
After discharge, children have a lot to learn and adapt to, and time passes quickly.
Afraid of not being able to bring the children well, I hired my sister-in-law for a month.
Yuesao, who has ten years of experience in bringing babies, said. This is the most difficult child she has ever brought, because she has never seen any baby who will hold her face black and her back angry when eating a mouthful of milk. She has never seen a baby who needs to measure the growth of head circumference every day, and she has never seen a baby who takes so much effort to raise her head.
Due to obstructive hydrocephalus caused by hypoxic cerebral hemorrhage at birth, the child underwent two temporary operations and suffered a lot.
Once he put a tube for drainage and once he buried a capsule for extraction. Every time he came back from extracting accumulated water, he cried and turned pale.
However, miracles did not come as we expected. Despite frequent extraction, the head circumference still increased rapidly, and the sunset sign of children caused by accumulated water became more and more obvious.
The obstruction cannot be absorbed by itself, and we cannot wait any longer. The third time is finally the inevitable permanent catheter peritoneal shunt operation.
When we decided to do it, more than one doctor talked to us and said that it was not meaningful to do the operation. You might as well focus on having another child.
Before the operation, the surgeon also told us that even if the operation can be successful, whether the child can grow up in the future is still a problem.
To deal with such cold words, my ears have already chosen automatic filtering. The child has survived so strongly that the rest of the problems will be left to adults.
There is no giving up in his life dictionary, so we rely on what to despair?
In the 24 hours after the operation, the child’s heartbeat once reached more than 240 beats, with high fever, vomiting, inability to eat, incision pain and constant moaning.
However, the next day you miraculously subsided your fever and ate your milk as usual.
On the third day, you were as energetic as usual. All doctors and nurses were greatly amazed by your vitality. Is this really a baby that has just arrived at its due date?
Insist on rehabilitation training and have surprises every day.
After settling the obstacles on the way to growth, the next step is the most important recovery.
Brain injury caused high muscle tension of lower limbs, hard legs like wood, and feet bouncing down, all of which made me anxious.
After correcting the age of the first month and the full moon, we started our daily professional rehabilitation training.
No matter cold or hot, no matter far or near, no matter day or night, no matter what situation, overcome all difficulties, never stop the children’s rehabilitation training.
It took us two months to practice looking up and three months to practice turning over.
If you have prepared for the worst, then every slight improvement will bring great surprises. Now, the child has gone through 9 months of correction, the height and weight standard and muscle tension have been controlled, and the major sports are still lagging behind, but he can sit on his own.
I can’t climb at 4 o’clock yet, but the speed of crawling is also swishing, and I can’t see it for a while and then I run away. Holding can stand for a while, and I always want to walk by myself.
He likes to smile at people he knows well and see his eyes shine when he eats. He is a full snack.
He loves to listen to stories, read picture books, and yell when he is happy. And began to show naughty attributes, can’t stop for a moment, began to become a headache.
The past year can be said to be a year full of despair and hope, struggle and persistence in my life.
At one time, I felt that this was the low point of my life. The low point could not be lower, but every step after that was upward, didn’t it?
To this day, our future is still unknown, because there are too many uncertain factors, and sons still belong to the category of high-risk children.
We still don’t know whether his lungs and trachea can develop well, whether he will walk normally in the future, whether he can read, write, speak and sing like a normal child…
All I know is that everything is much better now than the day he was born.
To be able to accompany you, help you and support you with love is a thick gift.
Even if you persist in crying, it is possible to talk about all this with a smile in the future.
Miracles can happen, as long as you work hard enough and are lucky enough.
Fortunately, my children and I met such good relatives, such good doctors and nurses, such good rehabilitation teachers and such a good information environment, which made me learn a lot about premature infants.
I always want to be the same as the person who helped me and help others, but there is really too little I can do.
If I have the chance in the future, I am willing to help all mothers and children who have the same experience as me…
Nine times out of ten life is unsatisfactory, but there are no two or three people who speak with others.
I am a mother who is not good at complaining, but if I am seriously asked about my children’s various problems and illness, I will not deliberately avoid talking about anyone.
Because I found that the people around me knew so little about premature babies, just as ignorant as before I gave birth.
So many people think that the child is only a few taels less meat, so many people think that it is simply a ordeal to take the child to do rehabilitation every day, so many people think that there is nothing to worry about walking late and talking late, so many people delay the child’s life because they do not know the importance of early intervention.
If I can let the people around me know more, I don’t mind being anyone’s talk, perhaps I can let more children get help, let more premature babies get out of the shadow of cerebral palsy and become normal children to enjoy sunshine and love.