B4 – My Superhero

I don’t think I’m completely done having babies.  I’d love one more, but I’d only want it to be a full sibling to the 4 boys not a half sibling so that completely rules it out leaving B4 as my last baby. I try not to think about it too much but sometimes I’m just so overwhelmed by how quickly time is going with him. He is now 6 months old and it really does feel like just yesterday he was born.

B4 had a very tough start to life.  Actually his tough life started when I was 13 weeks pregnant with him and I received the news that there was a 1:249 chance of him having Down Syndrome.  This completely shocked me, I’d been through all of those routine scans and tests in previous pregnancies with everything coming back as being fine so to hear that this one wasn’t was shocking.

After weighing up options to test further I went with a Harmony blood test and after a very long 2 week wait I was given the fantastic news that there was only a 0.01% chance of him having Down Syndrome, finally I felt able to breathe, relax a bit and look forward to a healthy baby boy.

Now I must point out for new readers that my marriage fell apart whilst I was pregnant with B4 so I was under tremendous stress for the duration of the pregnancy.

At a routine 20 week scan it was then picked up that B4 had some brain abnormalities so the remainder of the pregnancy was spent having regular ultrasounds and check ups and at around 34 weeks B4 the detected brain abnormalities were put down to a “variation of normal” and my pregnancy was taken off the high risk category.  B4 still had to have brain scans when he was 8 weeks old to completely clear him of any abnormalities.

When B4 was born and he was beautiful and he was perfect, we’d already been through so much together and already had a very special bond.  I named him after a superhero in a movie.  It wasn’t just any movie, it was a movie my ex husband and myself loved to the point that we used to call each other by the main characters. I somehow figured if I gave B4 a name with a special meaning to his father and myself it will somehow lesson the blow of abandonment he might feel later in life when he learns the chaos that took place prior to his birth.

After he was born, he almost instantly went to sleep.  I wrapped him up and held him tight. He was born at 11.11pm and it wasn’t until a few hours later I was finally alone with him and then it dawned on me that he’d been sleeping for a while. I’ve had enough babies to know that they don’t normally sleep this long after just being born.

I mentioned it to a midwife and we both laughed it off as I should enjoy it before he wakes up. The midwife also put it down to the fact that I was still breastfeeding B3, so B4’s first feed would’ve been milk so it’s probably filled him up.

I managed a few hours sleep and was woken by the midwife to check obs. B4 still hadn’t woken up. She took B4’s temp which was critically low, in newborns this is a possible sign of infection so he was whisked away to the special care nursery.

He was put under the heat lights but his temperature didn’t improve so he was put on antibiotics.  A blood test later revealed that he was suffering with sepsis (blood poisoning) and spent the next 48 hours in special care being pumped with antibiotics. It was an eye opener and I take my hat off to the special care nurses who are absolutely awesome.

The sepsis most likely came from GBS (group B streptococcus) which I had tested negative to a few weeks earlier.

When it comes to giving birth I take a natural drug free approach, I find personally for me there is something very liberating about the pain and being able to feel and fully appreciate what your body can do (I will add that my labours have all been very quick ranging from the longest being 4 hours to the quickest being 43 minutes).  In all of my pregnancies I had toyed with the idea of home births but after researching decided the risk was too high so I’ve gone for minimal medical intervention births in birthing suites. I am not wanting to stay in hospital long and have previously gone home after 4 hours in hospital (minimum requirement at the hospital I had my babies at)

I feel that B4 has a special guardian angel looking after him.  He was born late in the evening so the midwives suggested I stay overnight, had he been born earlier in the day I would’ve taken him home and not even noticed that he was incredibly unwell.

After all of the setbacks in his short little life thus far, B4 is the happiest little guy you’ll ever come across.  He is not fussed by the noise and chaos in our house, his eyes light up when his brothers are around and he’s used to being dragged here, there and everywhere and sleeping on the go.

He completes my not so little family.

This story wraps up the introduction to my 4 beautiful boys.  You can read the stories of B1, B2 and B3 by clicking on the links.

Kirsty Pickering

Kirsty is the founder of That Noise Is Mine.

An established blogger, writer and business owner raising 4 children independently. Kirsty is determined to succeed in this new life forced upon her.

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