When Instinct Kicks In

Standing, looking through the glass window watching my day-old baby being placed on the xray table, the assistant pulling her legs down to straighten them, her screaming and my partner being tasked with holding them straight was the moment I knew I was really a mother. All I wanted to do was run in there and push them out of the way, scoop up my baby and hold her in my arms. Soothe her. Protect her. Stop her cries.

Never had I felt so helpless and out of control. I wasn't allowed in the xray room, because I’d just had an emergency c-section. It was one of the most horrific experiences of my life. It was like living through a bad dream that I couldn't stop.

Soon enough the experience was over and I got my precious little bundle back. I could hold her tight and comfort her. We were sent back to the maternity ward to await the results of the xrays. And wait we did. At 9.30pm that night, I had just drifted off to sleep and a young doctor came in to tell me that the xray showed nothing about her left knee. He then proceeded to wake her up and check her out. He mumbled something about her hip not being right and left the room swiftly, with nothing else to offer.

Two days later a burly midwife came in and abruptly told me that I was to be down in xray in 10 minutes for baby to have her hip xrayed, otherwise I was spending the weekend in hospital. I was already climbing the walls and wanted out. However we couldn’t leave because the doctors couldn’t figure out what the issue was with baby’s leg.

Somehow I managed to get up and out of bed and shuffle myself along, ignoring the pain to push the crib to the lift, tears streaming down my face. I was on my own as my partner had left to get something to eat. On our way down we ran into my partner and he came with us to repeat experience at all over again. Talk about repetitive nightmares!!!

We were then sent for an ultrasound of her hip which revealed it was dislocated. At last we knew what was going on. What a relief! But it was temporary. The hospital we were in didn’t treat children this small. We were sent back up to the ward and told to put double nappies on her and wait for our next move.

Even though we had an answer, my partner and I were distraught. Would our child ever walk? Would she ever run? How did this happen? Whose fault is it? Why didn’t the young doctor send us for an ultrasound? And so began a vicious cycle of doubt and blame. It didn’t do us an ounce of good. We had to trust that the doctors knew what they were doing and would do their best to remedy the situation.

But the waiting game is the hardest of all games to play. You don’t know what comes next.  You don’t know how long you will be waiting for the answers to appear or if they even will. At some point, there’s a choice to be made about trust. Trust that everything will be okay and things will work out in the end, the way they are meant to.

Quite often when you’re in the heat of the moment, under stress with your adrenal glands in full flight, it can be difficult to focus on anything other than that moment. You get so caught up in all the emotion, you lose sight of the bigger picture. Our baby was healthy. We are not the first parents that this had happened to.

While we were waiting for our answers, we were blessed with the arrival of our midwife from antenatal classes. An angel sent from heaven. She talked to us. She listened to us. She cried with us. She got frustrated with us and went searching for answers. Finally, we had someone on our side, willing to bat for us.

And answers she got. After making several calls we were put on standby for an Angel Care flight to the Royal Children’s Hospital in Brisbane. Somehow we managed to get suitcases packed for us and brought to the hospital ready to go. We waited and waited and waited. It was getting later and later and didn’t look like we were going anywhere that day. Our beautiful midwife came in and told me she was going to discharge me, as nothing would happen over the weekend. We were to come back Monday and she would sort everything out for us.

Leaving the hospital with our bundle of joy was such an elating moment. What an ordeal it had been. Life had been turned upside down over the past few days. We were blessed with our beautiful girl, we just needed to get some answers and they would come in time. At least we could go home to our own home and get settled in, get used to being a family of 3.It was time to take some deep breaths, relax and savour those first precious moments together. We had an obstacle in our way, but it wasn’t stopping us from having our precious girl with us. We learned to be grateful for what we had.

Thinking about this experience now, reminds me of the saying …. “It’s not the hand you are dealt, it’s how you play the cards”. Little did I realise how big an impact this would have over the next few months.