Eileens View... (Ambers Mum)

When I read my Mom’s email she sent back home I thought it contained lots of extra detail that I didn’t know or had forgotten. Here is her point of view of her first days in Australia…..


I have had a very exciting two days! After 28 hours of travel I expected to find a VERY pregnant daughter and grandson meeting me at the airport. Instead I found David McNaught with Blake. Amber had her baby girl the day before--about the time I was boarding the plane at Los Angeles! Everything and timing had to worked perfectly or we would have lost our little girl. God is GOOD! They had planned to go to Michael's parents' house earlier in the day but got left late. During the drive down, Amber felt liquid and thought her water to had broke but found she was bleeding instead. She called the hospital that they had registered for. They told her they were not equipped to handle emergencies on the weekend and to go to Tweed Heads. They were only 10 minutes from that hospital which was the first blessing. The second blessing was that the nurse in the emergency room knew exactly what was going on and started ordering everyone around. Michael said it was just like in the movies with her hollering orders while the gurney was being pushed down the hall. Amber was not going under fast enough to suit her so she told the anic... to put her under quick. This meant that he literally choked (cut off Amber's air) until she passed out. They did not take time to prep themselves or Amber for surgery--they just cut.

Sophie Alexandra had a heart rate of 60 and had lost about half of her blood--it was her blood and not Amber's in the car. Somehow the placentas had gotten intertwined and were low or under the baby's head so when Amber went into contractions, the placenta was broken which was spilling out all the baby's blood. Her arms and legs were pretty blue so they knew that she had not had oxygen for some time and put her on it immediately. As soon as Sophie was stabilized enough, they sent her by ambulance to the hospital in Brisbane. They did let Amber touch her for a few minutes before they transported her. Sophie responded to her mother's tough which really excited and encouraged the nurses. They had one nurse that came in on her day off and stayed with Sophie the whole time. She kept trying to pull the oxygen tube out of her mouth. (Can't say that I blame her!)

When I got here, we went directly to the hospital that Amber was at. She was doing fine so they transported her to the same hospital as Sophie. That evening when we went to the hospital to see Amber, we also got to see Sophie. We had to scrub up and could only touch her--not hold her. Her color was really good but they were keeping her body temperature down so they would put an ice pack under her. It was hard to see her shivering and not be able to cuddle her. They thought they would have to do that for 72 hours but she was off of it today--a day early.

Today was a very good day. Early this morning (3:30) they called Amber to come down to nurse Sophie so she got to hold her for a time. She didn't nurse very long--just went to sleep. Amber got to do that three more times before we left today. We all got to take turns standing by her little bed and touch her. She was moved from ICQ to "Special" which is very good. I think there is one more level down before she can be in Amber's room. It sounds like Amber will get to come home either Thursday or Friday. Sophie gets to come home after they do a MRI. First they said they would do it on Friday but now they are saying Monday. I'm not sure why the day changed but we are praying that it is Friday so baby can come home with Mom.

-- Eileen