"A day at a time": the first update

Many, many thanks for the concern, love, prayers and kind words expressed by so many of you over the last two days. We are overwhelmed by the response and care from friends close by and far away. I thought I’d give an update on Abigail’s condition as we wanted people to be up to date on the situation.

As I write, Abigail is 44 hours old and seems to be doing much better. Nix and I had a long chat with the consultant in charge of her in the Special Care Baby Unit yesterday and Nix has also been to see Abby and the doctors in SCBU today. The latest news is that the medical staff are now “extremely confident” that Abigail will survive, although it’s become clear that things were very much touch and go before and during the caesarean. The registrar who performed the operation said that it had been “very timely”.

Abby is still on heavy medication to stop fitting caused by lack of oxygen to her in the womb, although the good news is that she doesn’t appear to have had a fit for 24 hours now. Doctors say that they are still expecting her to be in hospital for another week or so, but that in all probability she will be on some level of anti-fitting medication for several months. Staff will today try again to place electrodes on her head and perform a test looking for normal brain wave activity – something that was abandoned yesterday after the machine failed! Doctors are currently describing Abigail’s condition as “stable”, that is, she is not currently showing any unusual signs given her condition. They are reviewing her sugar/water feed intake as Abby has actually put on weight in the last day! This is not really what they want and could be a further indication of some temporary damage to her kidneys – in other words, she’s taking on more than she can get rid of.

Abigail is now breathing OK on her own and is off oxygen. Her heart, lungs and brain all appear to be fine, although her brain is slightly swollen but this is to be expected with the lack of oxygen and fitting. There appears to be some damage to her kidneys but this will ‘repair’ itself, and damage to the bowel. We don’t know what the long term effects of this might be. Doctors said yesterday that they feel Abby has a 50% chance of making a full and complete recovery with no ill effects at all and a 50% chance of some level of permanent brain damage. This might be that she’ll have mild learning difficulties, through to cerebral palsy and more serious mental handicaps. They say that even if she makes good progress and is discharged as among the 50% that are perfectly fine, it may well be that problems are picked up later in life: she may start fitting in her teens or even later, or she may have cerebral palsy or learning difficulties that won’t be picked up for a few years.

Nix is OK, although just today she has hit the expected very emotional stage usual a few days after birth. She’s now in a room on her own and is up and about walking occasionally to SCBU to see Abigail. The staff have been fantastic and almost everyone involved in the delivery room and operating theatre have been up to see her personally. The registrar who did the caesarean even stopped Nix in SCBU to give her a big hug! Nix is on heavy painkillers but her wound is said to be healing very nicely.

Rebekah and Joshua are fine (we are staying at my Mum and Dad’s although there are frequent trips home too) and they both know that Mummy and Abby are in hospital “a bit poorly”. Becky has certainly picked up that things are not quite what they should be, though, and is quite clingy. We are just taking each day one at a time at the moment.