Dear Family and Friends
I’m at home at last, so let me tell you the news.
Caelyn’s baby, Tristan James, was born during a gale with torrential rain on Monday 12 December. As the winds were buffeting the car so much, they didn’t get to the hospital in time. I had phoned ahead and Labour Ward had told me that they would examine her, but that they had no beds.
They got as far as the ambulance bay, and Nigel called an ambulance crew to come and help and they were calm and laid back about it until they saw Caelyn – and Tristan’s head! No one knows how, but an emergency call must have been sent because two ladies came running in their scrubs. A Paramedic sat behind Caelyn to support her shoulders and back; Nigel was in the front seat holding one of her legs and the N2O. All four car doors were open so an icy wet wind was blowing through the car. Somehow, some screens were put in place. Caelyn was the only one who stayed relatively dry – everyone else was standing outside in the rain and wind. I think they all were frozen.
Baby was born, and as soon as the cord was cut, he was bundled up and the lady who delivered him handed him to the other one and told her “get this baby inside”. So off she went with Tristan (whose Apgar was 9 at birth and 10 at 5 minutes!) while the other lady saw to the placenta which came about 20 min later. Then Caelyn was put on a trolley and taken upstairs. She and Tristan were very cold, and even with lots of hot drinks and extra blankets, it took until 04h30 for her to stop shivering.
She was the talk of the ward, and several staff members stopped by to see her and wish her well. It turned out that the lady who delivered him was a paediatrician! I bet delivering her patients doesn’t happen too often! Caelyn was very happy with the care she received.
Then Meridian News started phoning the ward, wanting to do interviews, but she said she just wanted to get home. She did cave in eventually – all sorts of news people were sending her messages on Facebook. So here are some links. The BBC filmed her for the News and the page has a video of the interview, if you can see it in your part of the world.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2073741/Ex-Chile-ambassador-Richard-Wilkinson-injured-tree-falls-house.html (story between pic of house and lighthouse)
content&view=article&id=9405:i-was-asleep-then-the-next-thing-i-knew-there-was-a-tree-in-bed-with-me&catid=324:world-news&Itemid=542 (yes, Nigeria!)
And she was in the top two stories of Meridian News too.
After all that, Caelyn says she feels well for the first time in months, and Tristan is a contented little baby who is feeding like a gannet.
Well, thats quite a story to tell the lad when he grows up! There is just one worry, and that is that he was conceived while his mother had a contraceptive device surgically implanted in her arm, and it has a failure rate of 0.04%. The pregnancy was very troubled, and Caelyn spent a lot of time in hospital. They stopped premature labour 3 times. Her kidneys were failing and her breathing was a big problem, with her only having a Peak Flow of 150 for most of the time. Then he was born like this. You know how we say that if there is a bizarre or weird situation, our Kate is in the middle of it? I wonder if young Tristan is going to follow in his mother's footsteps ...
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