Marlinde’s son Ira (8) suffered serious brain damage during birth. During the Week of the Disabled Child, the mother shares her story. Part I: pregnancy, childbirth and all the colorful clouds during the maternity period.
It is 2015 when Marlinde is 35 weeks pregnant with her third child. A boy, after two girls, will complete the family. The pregnancy progresses reasonably well until the thirty-fifth week. From one moment to the next, Marlinde becomes seriously ill. “I was in a lot of pain, so intense, as if I was already having contractions. I also had a very high fever. Yet I was initially sent away from the gynecologist with the words ‘that it was probably a flu’.”
After several investigations, that flu turned out to be a streptococcal infection – at my own insistence. “I was immediately admitted to hospital and given antibiotics. That wouldn’t hurt the baby and I would get better again. After ten days I was still weak, but strong enough to return home. At least, that’s what they found in the hospital. I did not agree with that, because as a mother I felt that the baby was not doing well.”
Gut feeling
The gynecologist tries to reassure Marlinde. The infection really cannot spread to her son, he assures her. She can safely recover at home and enter the last weeks of pregnancy. “I didn’t want to go home. Can’t the baby be delivered already? I asked. I still felt that things were not going well for him. That gut feeling or maternal instinct, whatever you want to call it, was so strong. Shouldn’t my baby be monitored? No growth ultrasounds are made? But no. “His heart is beating, he’s doing fine,” I heard and I had to go home.”
That gut feeling or maternal instinct, whatever you want to call it, was so strong.
Marlinde is not yet comfortable at home. After a few days her stomach feels calm, way too calm. No kicks, no signs of life. “We have to go to the hospital now,” I said to my husband, “it’s not going well.” They leave with screeching tires to the hospital where Marlinde immediately has to be put on a monitor. His heartbeat was not good, the baby could not be felt. “’Maybe he’s sleeping,’ they said. I just had to lie on my side and he would probably wake up.” Nothing happens. “It was only after almost an hour that a gynecologist entered the department. In panic. ‘This is not good, not good at all, we have to go to the operating room now’. There, Ira was delivered by emergency caesarean section at 37 weeks. “Actually too late. He had no heartbeat, was no longer breathing. The pediatrician had to resuscitate him for five minutes before he came back to us.”
Marlinde swallows and continues: “At that moment you just think: Thank God he made it! It worked out well. But you really can’t know that at all. As a parent you have no idea what resuscitation means, what it means when the brain has not had oxygen for a while – we still don’t know how long.” The staff does: a medical social worker will be added immediately. The nurses call the fact that Ira drinks independently from his first bottle ‘very special for ‘such a child”.
Clouds
Released from the hospital, the entire family is on a cloud. Sometimes on a dark one due to worries, but more often on a pink one. “We were especially relieved because Ira was at our home. Our family complete. In retrospect, we were in shock during that period and repressed entire parts of the birth. When the pediatrician told us that she had resuscitated our son, we looked at her in disbelief. It had happened before our eyes and yet we didn’t remember it. Bizarre.”
In retrospect, we were in shock and repressed entire parts of the birth.
Ira is being closely monitored, but the first brain scan shows nothing unusual. Fine, Marlinde and her husband think. “It later turns out that such a first scan, when the child is still so young, almost never shows anything. The result actually meant very little, but we were relieved.” But over the weeks that heavy feeling overwhelms Marlinde again. “Ira developed very differently from his sisters (aged 4 and 6). He was stiffer, sick all the time. Then he was so short of breath that he was admitted to the hospital and had to be put on a ventilator.” Marlinde feels it more and more strongly: it is not good. “I didn’t share my suspicions with anyone, not even my husband. Saying it made it even more intense, however. But deep inside I knew that Ira would never walk…
2023-11-14 13:33:10
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