Charlotte Consulea Hext

My pregnancy would be classed as a ‘dream pregnancy’, I had no morning sickness and no pregnancy symptoms to complain of. I was under an obstetrician & at 32 weeks I saw him for my regular appointment. I sat down & remember saying to him that I was the most boring patient he must have ever had as my pregnancy was so uneventful and uncomplicated. Little did I know that within 4 days of seeing my ob that my uncomplicated pregnancy would become anything but that.

Just 4 days after that ob’s visit I noticed that my baby had had a reduction in movement, I was completely unconcerned for two reasons, firstly my baby was extremely docile inutero and did not move that much prior to my noticing the reduction in movements and secondly I was a first time mum so I thought I was being a completely over-reacting mum to be.

I decided that I would call my Dr’s office just to mention the change in movement. I was asked to come in immediately and upon arrival I was taken straight in for an ultrasound. The baby had a heartbeat so in my mind everything was fine. I explained to my Dr that Bub was always quiet so I wasn’t worried but he wanted to do a trace. I was hooked up to a trace and left with a midwife, who after 10 mins explained my Dr had ducked down to the hospital because of an emergency patient. As I laid there I thought about the poor mum to be experiencing a pregnancy emergency, however what I did not know was in actual fact I was the emergency patient and my Dr was organising a theatre so my baby could be born immediately. My Dr returned and an ambulance arrived to take me to hospital. As soon as I got to the hospital I was taken straight to theatre for my daughter to be born. I saw her for 1 minute through the glass of a humidcrib before she was rushed to NICU for a life saving blood transfusion. My daughter had developed a rare inutero condition called a fetal maternal haemorrhage and basically meant that my daughter was bleeding to death as all the blood that was meant to go to her came back into me instead. This condition is life threatening and the only real symptom is a reduction in movements or a complete stopping of movements.

My daughter is about to turn 5 years old and her life that day was saved by a phone call to my Dr and also to the experience of my Dr who knew something was very wrong with her and that she needed to be born immediately to save her life.

– Written by, Charlotte’s mother Nicole