“My last pregnancy nearly killed me.  I never associated bleeding with pregnancy, the two just didn’t go together, but this pregnancy I bled the entire time”, Rachel said. 

 

At 22 weeks, she was taken to Westmead Hospital where, with a diagnosis of stage 4 placenta previa and placenta increta/percreta, she was confined to a bed until Estelle was born.  

 

For Rachel, the pressure from labouring could have caused her to haemorrhage and endanger both her and Estelle’s lives, so for five weeks she endured constant doctors’ rounds, scans, complex medical tests and countless infusions.

 

Limitations on movement made Rachel weaker, and while she missed special occasions like first days at school, she knew that her most important job was to keep the baby inside her for as long as possible. Finally, after indescribable pain and the genuine thought of death being so close, she went into labour, not without first asking her husband to send a message to her kids.  “Tell my kids I love them, tell them every day I love them more than anything.  I love you.  I love you.”

 

The day when Rachel was taken to meet her baby at Westmead’s NICU finally arrived.  Feeling incredibly anxious, Rachel was pushed towards the humidicrib and saw Estelle for the first time, connected to a large piece of equipment that was keeping her alive.

 

A few days later, Rachel held her baby.  “All my physical pain slips away, and for the first time in months I am calm.” Rachel and her husband Nathan learnt to be NICU parents, discovering things most parents of newborns take for granted.

 

“As a mother of a newborn, instead of coming home to a bassinet filled with love, I came home to an expressing station and a diary charting my milk production, a box filled with medications and a large cut that will take time to heal.”

 

Estelle, now 2, is a happy toddler.  As a way to show gratitude, Estelle’s parents celebrated her birthday by attending the blood donor centre at Parramatta.