CF and Motherhood ? Carly Davidson
I won’t deny that caring for a child and coping with the demands of CF is hectic. Adequately meeting the needs of the baby plus juggling treatments and every day tasks is tiring. Did I mention being constantly sleep deprived? In my household, routine and good organization proves to be a necessity however, the ability to be flexible now and then is important too. My daughter Lily Mikayla (now seventeen months) was born March 2004. She was delivered at thirty five weeks of pregnancy by caesarean section, and weighed five pound seven ounces. I had a fairly blessed pregnancy really. From memory, I had two, two week routine IV antibiotic treatments and didn’t start getting really breathless until around twenty nine weeks. Put it this way, at seven months I was well enough to jump off boats into the ocean off Cairns and snorkel for hours! A groper fish seemed very keen to check out my bump.
Getting back to Lily, the birth went smoothly, however the recovery was rocky. After the caesarean operation, I refused to cough or have physio for four days. I was in a lot of pain and to cough was excruciating. I was also frightened that when I coughed my wound full of stitches would burst open. My reluctance to have physio treatment resulted in me developing the worst lung infection I had ever experienced. The caesarean really took its toll on my health. It took my body months to properly recover from the operation. If circumstances were different, I would have preferred a natural birth. At the time though, Lily was in a breech position so a natural birth wasn’t really an option.
Thankfully Lily’s road to recovery after the birth was much quicker than mine. Lily arrived a little jaundiced and she had low sugar levels. I was told this can be common in new born babies if the mother is a diabetic (I was diagnosed with CF-related diabetes at the age of 14). Lily was well cared for on the neonatal ward. She was monitored regularly in a humidicrib and attached to a glucose drip until her sugar levels increased and stabilized. When Lily had mastered feeding from the breast, she had her feeding tube removed and joined me in my room on the maternity ward. All up she remained in neonatal care for about seven days.
On the home front, although motherhood is exhausting it’s wonderful too. I know I made the right choice to have a baby when I did as I could see my lungs were progressively getting worse. I am glad that I sought fertility help when I did as I feel that if I hadn’t, my chances of becoming a mother might have been slimmer.
Lily is my shinning star, every day I look at her and thank my lucky stars. She’s my little shadow and I couldn’t imagine life without her. As an active toddler, Lily now climbs stairs, enjoys touching things she knows she shouldn’t, laughs at almost anything, dances to Hi5 and is starting to test out her vocabulary.
Being with this little life I created and fought so hard to get is very rewarding. She is truly a God send.
