Kora's Birth Story

I'll start this off by saying, I am by no means an expert writer so I apologize for any inncorect grammer used!

In August 2020 we gave birth to our first daughter, Ella. We had a rough first few months as being first time parents in the midst of a pandemic was very challenging. But we pushed through and learnt to enjoy even the harder moments because it does truly go by so so fast.

When Ella was around 10 months old, we decided we were ready to add another member to our family. It took a little longer this time for us to get pregnant. I went back to work when Ella was 1 for a few months before leaving my job, and shortly there after we got a faint positive test! After 6 months of trying for a baby, we were excited! Sadly, a few days later, we experienced a miscarriage. We decided to continue trying that following cycle and landed up getting pregnant again. This one stuck and once the morning sickness began, we were relieved as all seemed well this time around!

We went for an early ultrasound to confirm there was a beating heart and to see our little baby for ourselves. I was sent for a dating ultrasound due to my cycles being longer than usual. My due date was set. August 23, 2022. I continued to go to my monthly checkups and heard a beautiful heart beat every single time. We went at 16 weeks to find out gender of baby and to let Ella see her in an ultrasound. We were over the moon to be having another girl! I was convinced we were having a boy, but had hoped it was another girl so we were extra excited. Then, when I went in for my 20 week Anantomy scan, and remember feeling like the tech was a little more quiet than the last few times but I didn't think much of it. I never heard back regarding that ultrasound and was told that "no news is good news" so on we went living life as usual. My morning sickness wore off and I was feeling great!

In April, at my 24 week appointment, my doctor sat down with me, while Ella was climbing all over me and exploring the office, and said the words no one ever wants to hear. "There is something wrong with your baby's heart". My heart dropped. I felt sick to my stomach. She went on to explain that our little girl, she confirmed it was a girl, had something called Dextrocardia along with a couple holes in her heart. She said I would be referred to Winnipeg for more extensive scans. I requested St Boniface as we had some wonderful nurses placed into our lives for this exact reason even though we didn't know it at the time! However after going back and forth between the hospitals, it was determined that I would be delivering at HSC in Winnipeg. They had the best NICU and Heart clinic in our province. We were having a very hard time coming to terms with the fact that our birth was going to look very different than we hoped for.

Every 2-4 weeks was another scan to get a more clear picture of her heart. We confirmed that she had Dextrocardia(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK556074/), a large VSD(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470330/), and what they believed to be DORV (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8546142/). Our diagnosis stayed the same with a NICU stay going to be needed once she was born, 3 days minimum but they told us to prepare for a week, and possible immediate surgery once they could better see her heart. The last few weeks leading up to her birth were a challenge as we had weekly scans, and needed to stay close to the city as my first labour progressed so quickly that they were worried we would not make it in time as our drive was at least 1.5 hours.

The day of my due date they called me to request that I come in that evening to start an induction the following morning. The last thing I wanted this time was an induction as my first one was extremely intense due to my body over reacting to the medicine used to start my induction. We had little choice this time as they had room in the NICU and the team was ready for her. I had been sitting at 3 cm dilated for a couple weeks with little progress but we knew things would happen quickly. We headed into the hospital at 11 pm on August 23.

I barely got any sleep that night and was wide awake at 5 am August 24. They came in to start the induction at 9:45 am. All they needed to do was break my water as I had progressed the last week enough that they did not need any medication. My doula was tied up at a different birth over an hour away so she sent her backup to be with us. Things were fairly slow going until about 3:45 pm when things picked up. Labour went smooth and at 6:17 pm she was born. She cried instantly! I had not noticed the amount of people that had entered the room, but we had an entire team from the NICU waiting to revive her if needed. The moment she cried, the room cleared and only about 5 nurses were left there. The doctor did not make it in time to deliver her but our amazing nurse did. I was able to nurse her right aways after being warned that I was most likely not going to be able to hold her, let alone nurse her. They checked her out, wi

ped her down and got her ready to transfer down to the NICU with my husband. They all left and I stayed and got cleaned up and transfered to the overnight stay room. After about 3 hours I was finally able to go see my little girl again.