This is a touchy subject, not many people have heard of or know what Gastrochisis is. I thought I would raise awareness by sharing my story with all you amazing women.
I fell pregnant at 16 years old and was so scared as I didn’t know what to do. I told my boyfriend and then told family who weren’t happy to start with but were so supportive.
We went for our 1st scan in March 2016 and were so excited to see our wee gem.
We never noticed in the scan picture that anything was wrong but the radiographer did so they sent us out the room and made us wait for answers.
When they came back they told us we needed to go and see a specialist doctor to see what the problem was. We went ahead to the appointment, we found out our baby boy had a condition called gastrochisis.
We had no clue what it was or how it happens. We were so scared that we would lose our baby.
Gastrochisis is when your baby is growing inside you, their wee body’s are forming and coming together but if the baby forms and doesn’t come together properly it can result in your baby having Gastrochisis. For my baby it meant that was his bowel that would be on the outside of his body when he was born. This would mean that when he was brought into this world he had to get an operation to fix it, this was a lot to take in. We went home and looked it up and read all the horror stories.
We were brave and I was induced on the 28th August 2016 (21 days before I was due). We had our little boy on the 31st August 2016. This is when it got hard for us all. Our baby was rushed away from us the second he was born and we were not allowed to hold him until he had his operation. 3 nights later we were allowed our first cuddle and seeing our boy fighting for his wee life broke our hearts. Everyday was a struggle, infection after infection, being sick constantly. We finally got to try him with some milk, just 1ml. 1ml of milk! And he couldn’t keep it down. After 8 weeks of trying the doctors changed his milk. Now he was on this new milk and he slowly improved! 3 months later and our little boy was happy, healthy and smiling. On the 25th November 2016 we were told we can come home. He fought his battle, proper little trouper! If anybody has ever been through the same thing I’d like to hear your stories!
Thankyou for reading much appreciated x