The Ruby Nest

My story began on the 24th March 2020, when I found out I was pregnant with our son. On the 26th March 2020 the country went into lockdown and my dreams for my pregnancy went out of the window.

In these unprecedented times, maternity services were not top priority. I went to all scans and appointments alone, running out to my husband in the car to let him know everything was still okay each time. What was supposed to be the happiest time of our lives was instead filled with worry.

I never saw the same midwife twice and remembered thinking I wish there was someone I could just connect with to talk through everything. All classes were cancelled and hadn't yet moved online, so the isolation was real.

At around 19 weeks I was diagnosed with early SPD, yet another hurdle to overcome. By 25 weeks, I was in a wheelchair. I couldn't leave the house without assistance, and due to the pandemic nobody could come over. It was far from the exciting wait for our new arrival we envisioned.

Due to my SPD, the decision was made that I would be induced at 39 weeks. I wasn't told the pro's and con's of this, nor were any risks of induction discussed with me. I was also never given the option to decline this induction. Being naive as I was, I went along with it, believing this must be what was best for me and my baby. A decision I now know I would come to regret, and was not in line with my legal rights.

I was brought in on the Monday at 1pm and given the pessary, told to ring them at 8pm to let them know what was happening, and then released to go home. At 7.30pm I rang them and unfortunately was told off for ringing them half an hour early when they were busy. When I told them I was having contractions every 2 minutes lasting 1 minute their tone very suddenly changed and I was told to come in immediately.

When I got to the hospital the pessary was removed and I was sent home again at 11pm, to return the next day at dinner time. After returning I waited on the ward until 7am the next day, when they broke my waters. 

I had contractions throughout the day, and was unfortunately given an epidural during transition, after which it was discovered I was 9cm, and this slowed everything down. My son's heart beat started to drop and it was decided he needed to come out then. I was given an episiotomy and had a forceps delivery. I am now of the opinion that all this could have been avoided, and that's what started me on this journey to help empower and support other people through their pregnancy/birth/postnatal period. 

I planned on breastfeeding however I was given some bad advice during my hospital stay, and was coerced into giving formula by being told we could only go home if we did this. I attempted to pump however this didn't work for me and I panicked that our breastfeeding journey was over before it had even begun. 

When my son was 2.5 weeks old, we woke up at 3am for his usual formula feed. I had a sudden pull to try and latch him onto my breast, despite not having done this since we were in hospital. 

Amazingly he latched! And from then on I vowed that we would breastfeed. Over the course of a week we dropped his bottles one by one, until he was exclusively breastfed. 

Sadly, our journey was not to be smooth sailing from here.

At around 4 weeks he was wrongly diagnosed with thrush 3 times. At around 7 weeks he started to become extremely unsettled and refused to feed whilst he was awake, and he was prescribed gaviscon after being diagnosed with reflux. I did my own research on this and decided that medicating reflux was not the path that was best for us, and instead I wanted to find the cause of the reflux and solve the problem instead. 

At around 15 weeks we discovered he had a tongue tie, and went private to have this cut. There we found he had never had thrush, but it was milk residue due to his severe tongue tie. We also had a consultant with an IBCLC and discovered he had allergies to milk, soya, wheat and egg. After cutting these out of my diet, along with the tongue tie snip, we got our feeding journey back on track, and the reflux didn't come back. By 7 months we had reintroduced all the allergens back into our diet, and I am proud to say we are currently continuing to breastfeed now.

Our journey was not an easy one, between the pandemic, a lack of knowledge, and missing support there were many hurdles. However this is what made me so determined to support other people through their journeys, to make sure they get the best care that they deserve, and all the support that they need.