Luca by Melinda Jordan
Children had always been on the agenda for my partner, Daniel, and I. I remember having a conversation about them not long into our relationship and we were both eager to have a family as soon as we possibly could. After talking it over with the doctors and having Daniel genetically tested, we started trying to conceive.
Knowing that it may be harder for us to fall pregnant naturally (because of the thickened cervical mucus making it difficult for the sperm to get through and fertilise an egg), Daniel and I tried naturally for 12 months before we were referred to the Fertility Clinic at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. We were told that the most common method used to help women with CF fall pregnant was IUI – Intrauterine insemination. This way, the sperm bypasses the cervical mucus and has a good chance of fertilising an egg.
Our second round of IUI was a success. After 18 months of trying, we were finally on our way to having a baby. The day I did my home pregnancy test was one of the most amazing days of my life. I never really expected to fall pregnant, so to see those two lines come up was, for me, the greatest moment to that date. After our positive result was confirmed by the Fertility Clinic we told our families, who were shocked, but extremely happy.
I wish I could say that my pregnancy was a breeze and that I was the picture of health. Unfortunately at 7 weeks pregnant I ended up with pleurisy on top of an infection and spent 5 weeks in hospital. While I was in I was also diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes and started on insulin. This first admission set the course for the rest of the pregnancy and I ended up spending around five months in hospital. My lungs didn’t react very well to the changes that were happening in my body and I stayed unwell through the whole 7 months I was pregnant.
Thankfully the baby was fine. With every scan we had (and there were many -one every two weeks to make sure the baby was growing well and that there were no problems) we grew more and more confident that we were going to have a healthy baby. I worried throughout the beginning of the pregnancy that the IV drugs may have been crossing the placenta or that the X-rays I was having were harming the baby, but after putting myself in all of my doctors’ hands and trusting them to know what they were doing, I stopped worrying and realised that everything was going to be OK.
On May 30th this year, our little girl, Luca, was born by cesarean section 10 weeks early due to my lung function falling pretty low (it had been on a downward spiral for the past few months) and being pretty unwell. Luca was only 1.35kg at birth, but luckily had no major problems to set her back. She spent 6 weeks in hospital and was promoted through NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) and HDU (High Dependancy Unit) pretty quickly and spent the majority of her time in Special Care learning to feed, and just growing. We have had her home for 6 weeks now and we are adjusting to having her here with us and getting used to being parents!
I spent 4 weeks in hospital after the birth of Luca. My lung function had dropped to its all time lowest of one litre and the first time I did lung function after the cesarean, it was even lower. To say I was petrified is an understatement. I wondered if I had made the wrong decision to have children and if I’d done irreparable damage to my lungs. During my recovery, it slowly started to creep up and I eventually got back to where I was just before I had Luca. I believe that my lung function will come up more. I’m not sure whether I will ever get back to where I was before I fell pregnant, but I know that I feel OK and I’m hoping with physiotherapy and exercise, it will get back to a reasonable number.
When we first bought our little girl home, she was very much still in "premmie mode". She slept most of the time, didn't focus and was still very wriggly and grunty. She's developing very well now. She loves to stare at our faces when we chat to her, she pokes her tongue out and has very sweet mouth gestures. I think she is starting to smile (haven't caught it in full force yet, but I'm sure she's done it a few times) and she's awake a lot more than she was (when she was still premature she would sleep most of the day...She now has periods of being awake for up to an hour after a feed and sometimes refuses to sleep at all!). She is now 12wks actual (2wks corrected) and has no developmental or physical problems. She weighs 4kg and is growing into her 0000 clothes nicely. We've had to pack away some of her 00000 stuff because she's too tall for them, which is really nice considering most newborns are too big for 00000 clothing and she’s taken 3 months to get big enough to grow out of them!
I'm finding motherhood extremely hard, but totally rewarding and satisfying. I love my little girl so much and I find myself looking forward to waking up in the morning to see her little face! There’s nothing harder, scarier, physically and emotionally draining yet overwhelmingly amazing than conceiving, carrying, giving birth to and raising a child …except (from what I’ve heard) transplant!
