"Premature birth via c section"

There is nothing worse than being in a situation that you dont understand, but when surrounded by exceptional professionals, it certainly puts ones mind at ease.

We arrived at Royal Oldham at 0800 Monday after my partners waters had broken at 35 weeks and 4 days. Now in the run up to our big day, as you do, we had our scans, which showed a cyst, 11cm in length on the first scan. Now we are in the antinatal unit which hooked us up to the doppler, so far so good.... Famous last words. 10 minutes or so into the heart rate monitoring, the beeps began to slow down ... All of a sudden alarms went off and the midwife rushed in, took one look at the reading and hit the emergency alarm. Next thing we knew we were surrounded by midwifes and nurses and then whisked away to the labour ward where we were closely monitored ... Yet the decelerations continued.

At 1400 it was agreed that one more deceleration and we would go into theatre but our baby decided to be good and his heart rate became stable and we were then sent to be scanned before heading back to antinatal. Turns out our cyst had doubled in size and was now 22 cm.

So as we settled into the antinatal ward for the night everything seemed fine, only I was wondering why my partner wasnt experiencing any contractions and then the decelerations started again. Only this time we had a matron come to us, we didnt know it at the time but this matron would soon become our guardian angel. Unfortunatly until ive made some enquiries im unable to give you her name but we fully intend on recognizing the amazing work she did for us.

This matron stayed by my partners side throughout the night, re assuring her every step of the way, which really took my partners mind away from the chaos, we chatted and we waited but still no contractions and no sign of baby.

Throughout the night we experienced more decelerations and my partner was very distressed and I would be lying if I said I wasnt scared, however at this time I knew that was a luxuary I couldnt afford to show, not with my partner in the way she was.

A theatre team was assembled at around 0200 tuesday on the insistance of the matron and my partner had a classic c section, cutting from top to bottom as appose to left to right, yet because of the cyst, a further surgical proceedure was incorporated to remove the cyst and also her left ovary.

The matron received our son, which if I had to pick somebody, it would have been her. She showed me how well our son was, and as I was feeding him, a nurse went for our camera and began snapping our precious moments.

Once settled, we were given all the advice we needed and our son was healthy, weighing only 4lbs 14 oz, he was perfect in everyway.

I firmly believe that matron saved my sons life, and I dread to imagine the outcome without her. She is a credit to her profession, and as long as there are staff like her around, the NHS will continue to be a vital service to couples such as ourselves.

We have named our baby boy Reggie, and we cant wait to see what his future holds. To all the staff at the Royal Oldham birthing unit, the nurses, midwifes, ultra sound scanners, porters, shop workers, anybody and everybody there that take every day head on and dont flinch at the prospect of failure, the world is a safer place with you here. Thankyou