In May 2023 we found out Tash was pregnant. When we were 5 weeks gestation, on the June long weekend, Tash had a major bleed. Because it was so early, they couldn’t see anything on the ultrasound, they said it was most likely a miscarriage and Tash would need to have a follow up blood test in a couple of days.

2 days later we got a call from the early pregnancy assessment service, they explained that Tash’s HCG levels were going up and not down (when you miscarry), so the nurse wasn’t 100% sure what was happening. A few days later Tash had another blood test and the same thing happened again, that’s when our obstetrician (Sue) said she wasn’t convinced it was a miscarriage.

We had to wait a week until the embryo would be big enough to see if Tash was still pregnant or not. At the 6-week ultrasound the tech said it looked like there was 2 sacs, although one was miscarrying but the other still looked ok.

Tash continued to bleed for the next 5 weeks on and off. At one stage she had 5 check-ups in one week, just to ensure that the baby was ok because she bled every night. This bleeding was caused by a haematoma.

By week 12 the haematoma had cleared so there was no bleeding until week 18 then Tash had another bleed when she got up in the morning, we went to the hospital and baby was good.

At 23 weeks Tash had a significant bleed at home overnight. She woke me up and I was thinking this happens all the time go back to sleep and we can deal with it in the morning, not grasping the gravity of the situation. Phoned an ambulance and we went to Gosford hospital. We then spoke to the obstetrician, who is from Newcastle, about moving Tash to John Hunter Hospital so she could be under her care. We thought it was going to be 24-48 hours then we could go home.

Tash was transferred later that day, Sue came to check on us and that’s when she told us that Tash wasn’t leaving the hospital until baby was delivered, that they were going to do everything that they could to delay the birth for as long as possible but if the bleeding started and they couldn’t stop it Tash would have an emergency C-Section. Sue said that she expected the baby to come before December (30 weeks) and gave us an app called Nic-predict. The app is where you can look at statistics for premmies born 23-27 weeks with a few other variations like steroids, male or female and inborn or outborn (of a hospital with a major NICU). Over the next few weeks that was the most used app on my phone, I don’t know how many times I cycled through every possibility (we had chosen to not find out the sex) on that app but it was a lot.

After a few days in the hospital and another ultrasound we found out that as well as having grade 4 placenta previa (placenta blocking the exit) Tash also had placenta accreta (placenta grows into the uterus wall) and that was where the bleeding was coming from. As the baby grew it would cause the placenta vessels to tear off the uterus and bleed. Together these conditions meant that there was a high probability of Tash needing a hysterectomy at the time of birth.

4 days after Tash went into hospital, she had another bleed. The bleeding stopped so that was good.

The next night at 24+1 weeks Tash had another bleed, as there were 2 bleeds close together, they had nurses from the NICU have a quick chat about our options of having a child at 24-week gestation. Not sure if it was my phone or my brain but either way, I could only hear every about 2nd word.

That next day one of the NICU consultants (top doctors) come in and went through everything once again. Once he left, we had to discuss if we were going to have our baby resuscitated, premmies basically live on life support until they can breathe because their lungs aren’t developed enough to breath by themselves. Because of the mortality rates and disabilities rates of babies born younger than 26 weeks they say the choice is yours. After 26 weeks the survival statistics are much better. A conversation made harder by the fact that this was more the likely our last chance of having a child without intervention. To be honest I still don’t think that we were 100% decided one way or the other but lucky for us we didn’t need to decide.

Tash was good for the next few weeks. On 16/11/2023 about 11pm I got another call from Tash. I was sleeping and thought it was my alarm so swiped to turn it off. When I heard Tash’s voice, I woke up fairly quickly. She was bleeding again but this time it was different. As there hadn’t been any bleeding for 3 and a half weeks I really became a complacent about the situation so this actually came as a shock to me.

It was a 45-minute drive to the hospital and about halfway I got a call from a private number. I knew what this meant, took a few deep breaths to compose myself and answered. It was the midwife from birth suites letting me know that Tash had been taken into surgery, and what I am to do once I got to the hospital. They estimate Tash had lost about 2.8L of blood.

I arrived at birth suits about 11:45pm and the NICU nurses wheeled our baby out about 5 minutes later for my first meeting. Finley’s body was wrapped in plastic and she had CPAP mask and a canular in. She was born at 27+5 was 35.5 cms long and weighed 1310 grams. At 5ish the next morning one of the midwives came and got me from NICU and took me to Tash who was out of recovery and back in birth suites. Half an hour later one of the doctors from NICU came in, she said Finley was still working hard to breathe and is it OK if they give her a synthetic surfactant for her lungs. Because of Finley’s prematurity she didn’t have time to create enough surfactant of her own.

Finley was in hospital for 70 days before she was able to come home. This time was spent between NICU and Special Care once she was healthy enough. Luckily for us the hospital stay was fairly uneventful.

There’s no way we could have kept our sanity during all this without the massive amount of help and support we received from family, friends and workmates.

Lastly and most importantly all the amazing specialists, doctors, nurses, midwives, other hospital staff and the volunteers in the Ronald McDonald rooms and Starlight foundation room. We can never express how grateful we are for the help and support that you gave us over the 98 days that Tash and Finley were in the hospital.

Thanks so much

The Duncan’s