Hellen’s Story

Its a dream of every woman to become a mother some day. My journey wasn’t so easy at 14 wks i realized I was pregnant and so I went ahead  for an obstetric scan only to find out I was expecting twins. I was very excited to share the news.  Then my problems begun. I went back to my working place (at school). I had  just started doing my daily work as usual. I felt like I peed on myself, tried to control it but was not able to.

I went to the washroom only to find I was bleeding  so I went back to the hospital  thinking that I had lost it …luckily enough the doctor had to do some tests only to find that my OS was not closed, I had to be admitted right away for further observation. After ten days, I got discharged and this time I was put on home bedrest. Things never got better as I was still bleeding. I had to go for a scan frequently to determine whether I was still pregnant because using a pack of sanitary towels fully soaked daily wasn’t a good sign.

I would be re-admitted from time to time though on restrict bedrest. I remember my doctor got transferred and I had to get another doctor. I was in level 4 hospital in Gatundu North, then one day they called one doctor who lives so far away from the hospital to enquire what to do because by then one of the twins wasn’t active. He said I should be tranfered to Gatundu District Hospital because  he couldn’t handle my case anymore.

Things never got any better. Staying in a ward was most stressful  where I would see women miscarriaging.  Being a first time mother expecting a 9 month term, I was anxious all the time and kept on expecting the worst. I remember this day, I had stopped bleeding for 3 days when the gynaecologist came on a monday to discharge me. I was to continue with the bedrest. Before she gave me the discharge letter the bleeding started again.

I was put on primolut to see if the bleeding could stop. I could not go home as I had thought. My gynae told me that at 28 weeks I will have to be transferred to the maternity ward to stay there until 30wks where they would take me to theatre because I had placenta preavia. Giving birth normally would make me bleed alot or end up loosing my babies. There is this day I had gone for a scan because I had to do it every week to see if everything was ok. The obstetric gynae told me he would not do it again because the bleeding was not coming from uterus. He recommended the doctors to find out whatever was wrong.

So at 28wks, a week later, I got so excited to move from the gynae ward to maternity ward. I found one nurse who wanted to check on me before I could be admitted in. I knew my problem. I told her  that nobody puts a fetal scope on me because if its done it causes me to bleed more. But she went ahead put her hands on my belly squashed me on my lower abdomen that’s when now the main problem started.

I didn’t know what to do or who to ask for help. I started to have severe pain and whenever I went back to the counter she would give me pain killers. I insisted to see the doctor though mind you it was at night. Had I known  the signs of preterm labour I would have been in a better place to ask for help as  early as possible. My doctor said I wasn’t supposed to move or rather walk because my cervix was opening.

When I saw the nurse wasn’t concerned I just went down the stairs back to the gynae ward because that is where I had bonded with the nurses who used to attend to me. Luckily one nurse managed to help find the doctor. We headed back to the maternity ward. I could barely walk due to severe abdominal pain . I was so helpless, they tried to give me medications to try to stop the preterm labour but it was already too late. I gave birth to the twins at 29wks twin A 1090gms and twin B 1080gms. They were immediately taken to the NBU.

It was almost dawn when I had to go and see my two boys. I was so nervous even to change diapers. They were the most tiny in the whole of that nursery. Twin A could not breath so he was on oxygen, twin B was so active. He would move to every corner of the incubator and he was all over his brother who could only cry.

On the 20th of October at around 6pm, I went back to the  mother nursery, I had had to take a nap after a tiring day going up round the nursery and back to the mother nursery. Though it was the best  thing that happened to me, I did not know that death was knocking on my door. I saw one internee coming in as we were just relaxing. She walked towards me and immediately I sensed that something was wrong. She told me that we needed to hurry and go to the NBU.

When we got there I found out that twin A was already out of the incubator and the nurse was holding him trying to give him some air. It was so heart breaking. She tried her best but my boy never survived. Nobody was there for me and I did not tell most people. I had to bare with the pain alone, my colleagues never knew what had happened and they could still call me (mama twins) not knowing what I had gone through because crying to them was a usual occurence.

The following morning, my husband  and I had to decide where our baby would be laid to rest. We had no choice but to use the hospital’s cemetery because I had to take care of my other boy. It was so traumatising as my baby had died on Thursday night but the morgue people came on Monday. I had to see him every other hour whenever I would go to the NBU because he was only wrapped with a cloth with my name written on him.

I thank God that I had the courage to go and take care of my other baby. My baby boy lost weight upto 800gms  the third day he got jaundice and he was on fluids for more than three days. I thank God he recovered slowly but all went well because the bilirubin was at the normal level so only medication would work for him.

On 5th dec there was  a strike and we had to leave the hospital. My baby was still on NGT Tube (Nasogastric Intubation Feeding) so he had not learned to use the cup. I remember the tube had blocked that morning. We had had no one to attend to us so we had to pay a certain nurse to change the tube then headed home he was only 1530gms by then.  I bought a heater at home and after 2 weeks he was 2kgs. He was still using the NGT tube and I started training him bit by bit to use cup feeding and a bit of breast feeding. Eventually I took him to the hospital and the NGT tube was removed. We had to be in hospital on and off but we thank God baby Sam is still doing fine now @ 1 year 3 months.