“Whilst giving birth during a pandemic, I was 32 weeks pregnant, considered vulnerable and in isolation, and my anxiety hit the roof…”
March 2019 was when I found out I was pregnant the first time. My husband and I were very happy about it. A few days after whilst at work when I noticed that I had some brownish spotting. I confided in a colleague, who told me to go get checked out immediately. I called a local private hospital and had an appointment within the hour.
The doctor there was very rude to me, bruised me during an internal ultrasound and told me to just go home and wait to miscarry the baby!
The bleeding stopped that evening and the next day I went to another doctor who is now my gynaecologist. He confirmed my pregnancy and that there was a sac, and was very nice and understanding about the previous day’s events. He told me that my next check up was in 4 weeks, when I would be 8 weeks pregnant.
It was at the 8 week appointment that l was told that although there was a heartbeat the baby was very small. I was told it was an anomaly and was referred to a consultant, who confirmed the same. Probably sadly the result of a heart defect. We were told to wait and see what happens and that they would monitor me more closely.
On Easter Saturday 2019, during another ultrasound, we were told that the baby’s heartbeat had stopped.
We were half expecting this but it was a shock none the less. Naive me thought now I would be sent to hospital and the fetus removed and I could just return to my normal life.
How wrong I was! The sac was still growing and I was still getting pregnancy symptoms like all day nausea and throwing up. So I was considered to be still pregnant. My gynaecologist told my husband and I that unless I bleed everything out, MDH would do a series of ultrasounds and tests to ensure that there really was no heartbeat. Each ultrasound would be ten days apart. Then I would be given an appointment for doctors to induce labor. I would spend the night in hospital bleeding everything out and then the next day I would get another ultrasound to see if a D&C is needed. The whole process would take about 2 weeks.
I was crying my heart out saying that I did not want to wait for so long or go through that and that I just wanted to have everything removed. In this day and age I could not, and still cannot understand how it’s not possible and why such a long process to remove a dead unviable fetus.
Women should be given a choice, either to wait or for the fetus to be expelled naturally or the fetus to be removed with the help of medication or surgery. A couple of friends told me they went through this last year. Both were put in a room with someone who was about to give birth or had given birth. And both had spent all night having to go through the blood to check for fetus remains, which I was told the hospital keep for testing.
I was not emotionally stable enough to go through all this and kept insisting with my gynaecologist to save me this hassle. Crying more than insisting. My gynaecologist asked me to wait till the following Thursday (5 days) and he would see what he could do. In those 5 days I tried every myth I had ever heard about miscarriage, like drinking gin and lifting heavy things. I never bled the fetus out. I was constantly nauseous and had huge period like cramps. I called the hospital a number of times and was told unless I see blood they will not do anything.
On that Thursday, my gynecologist told me to go to Gozo General Hospital on the following Monday. He said he would arrange for another gynecologist to see me there, confirm that the pregnancy had ended and they would carry out the necessary procedures.
On Monday, after being administered medication to bleed the fetus out in the morning (which never happened), I underwent an ERPC (Evacuation of Retained Products of Conception) in the afternoon under general anesthesia.
My husband was with me through the whole process until general anesthesia was administered. I was sent back home to Malta a couple of hours after the ERPC. Thankfully I insisted and only waited a few days and not weeks like some of my friends had to do.
Fast forward to 31 August 2019 I was at work when some of the girls decided to go to the pool after work. I decided to join, and that’s when I realised my period was due that day. By late afternoon, it hadn’t yet come and I had no symptoms whatsoever, so I decided to go to a pharmacy before going home to change and meet my girlfriends, do the test and once it would be negative my period would come.
Surprise, surprise the test was positive!!! I never showed up at the pool, I was crying uncontrollably and shaking, I was so excited, woke up my husband from his afternoon nap. He was over the moon, I was excited but also scared. I was going to be giving birth during a pandemic.
We messaged our gynecologist, who calmed me down and asked to see us in a couple of weeks. Once we passed the 8 week mark, we told our families the news. My pregnancy was a good pregnancy bar constant nausea and vomiting. It was common for me to leave work meetings to throw up and driving to or from work, I had to stop at the side of the road to throw up countless times! I took medication against the vomiting but it still continued, nothing seemed to work.
I was anxious throughout the whole pregnancy, scared before each ultrasound appointment that there would be a problem. My appointments were always two weeks apart, sometimes more frequent, but never longer than 15 days.
Then Covid-19 hit Malta. I was 32 weeks pregnant, considered vulnerable and in isolation, and my anxiety hit the roof, especially when it was announced that partners are not allowed in the delivery until the last stage whilst giving birth during a pandemic!
My water broke at home on a Saturday afternoon after a morning of light contractions. My gynecologist advised me to stay home on the exercise ball to get the contractions as strong as I can. At around 7.30pm contractions started coming badly and my gynecologist told me to start making my way to hospital. We called the CDS and they told me to go in. Once at CDS I had to go fill in some paperwork at the old emergency, so we went by car. As soon as we got there a nurse told us that the procedure had just changed but she will do the paperwork for us just the same since we were there and no-one knew about the changes yet!
Went back to the CDS, I was admitted in alone and checked. At the time I was still only dilated one. Was told I would get checked again at 1am. Then I was dilated 2, and drip was started. The contractions started coming more frequently soon afterwards and by 5am the pain was very bad and I was dilated 4. The midwife thankfully recommended an epidural, which I agreed to. Had it done within the next 30 mins or so. Unfortunately it did not work on me and by 8.30am I could feel all the contractions again so the anesthetist was called again to administer another epidural. By this time I was dilated 6, I remained like this till past noon.
At this point I was told that another midwife would need to check me as the midwife I had was concerned about the blood she saw during the check-up.
I was checked again by her superior and then a doctor. I was told I had what could probably be a ruptured placenta plus they thought baby was transverse. This was now 1.15pm.
The doctor said that they would check again in 30 mins to 45 mins and then decide the best way forward. 5 mins later, baby’s heartbeat (which had been good all night and morning) started getting lower, so I was told that they would prepare me for a C-Section immediately. I called my husband, who thankfully had been waiting in the MDH carpark since 9am, and he managed to be next to me in 5 mins. Had he waited at home, he wouldn’t have made it.
I was wheeled in for a C-Section and our little boy was born at 1.58pm. My placenta had in fact ruptured and cord had turned around baby’s neck.
My husband was allowed in for only ten mins from incision till baby was born. He saw baby and then my husband was asked to leave and to only return to MDH when it was time to pick us up.
Since I was giving birth during a pandemic, I had been swabbed for covid-19 at CDS at around noon on Sunday, and results were not yet out once I came out of the c-section so I was treated as a probable positive and transferred to a Covid-19 ward with my baby. After about an hour, swab results were out and my baby and I were transferred to the normal ward.
I was worried about how I would cope with a newborn on my own whilst being bed bound for some time, and I was exhausted after a 22 hour of labour, but the midwives and nurses helped me so much, and actually took care of my baby on the first night so I could get some sleep and rest.
I was discharged less than 48 hours from my c-section. My son and I came home to start our life as a family of 3. My husband was overjoyed we were finally home. He had not seen his son since birth as he had not been allowed to stay with us.
It has been a rollercoaster of emotions since March 2019, and never in a million years did I think I would be giving birth during a pandemic but that is the way it was meant to be for me. Our son is two months old now and every time I look at him, I realise how strong I had to be. It was worth the journey to finally have him in my arms.
Did you experience giving birth during a pandemic? If you’d like to share your birth story with us, contact us or email us at [email protected]
