Ashleigh Hood and Kim Kardashian
Ashleigh Hood, aged 16
Georgia Hood, the dancer
,God, she was a fighter! And still is.
Ashleigh Hood.
The night she was coming,I received a call from Andrew, Ashleigh's Dad, to come to the hospital. It had been a freezing cold dark day. I had been unsettled all week, a leaden anxiety in the pit of my stomach and nearly had a car accident as I raced to the Hospital.
Debbie was fine when I first arrived, lying in bed, coping with mild contractions. I had brought my emergency kit for Hospital and labour, flat shoes, warm jacket, mints, toothbrush and a book. There was a bean bag on the floor and I settled in for a long night.
The nurses in their infinite wisdom decided Deb was tired, nothing much was happening, contractions, strong, but cervix not dilated enough. Debbie was exhausted and tense. So they decided to give her something to help her sleep and slow everything down, even though her hind waters were leaking and had been for hours.
I disagreed, I thought the sooner baby was out, the better.
But what is a Mothers instinct against the might of the medical profession?
Debbie had done all the right things with the pregnancy, so I reasoned all would be fine,
The next morning contractions had slowed and Debbie's doctor, once again Dr Johnson, was concerned enough to call the Hospital. This was 15 years ago. You didn't get to choose your own Doctor to be at the birth in a Public Hospital but next thing he appeared and things really started to happen.
He said, like I felt, that the baby HAD to come out.
He railed at the midwife staff that had slowed labour. This baby should have been out and his concern was great. He whacked Debbie on to a drip of Syntonocin and we waited. And suddenly the pains were real contractions, strong. I was at Debbie's head when Ashleigh came into being. Just a head for a while and Andrew opposite me, fell in love, in one second instant.
He shouted with delight, "Deb, she's got the "lubra's Deb, Lubra Lips, like you, just like you" And then the body was there, all in a rush, and she was a big healthy girl, a little bloated from fluid, but perfect and placed in a bassinet.
I saw DR Johnson's face relax and I crossed the room to wash my hands. I saw one of the nurses grab the baby up and disappear. Andrew following, and then all hell broke loose. I glanced back at Debbie on the bed and waves of blood were gushing out of her body.
So much blood, bright red and foaming. It covered the floor and Dr Johnston was snapping orders to the nurses. A drip was quickly connected to Debbie and standing there opposite, I was torn. the baby was nowhere to be seen and Debbie was hemorrhaging. I crossed the floor avoiding the blood ,
It was everywhere, caught in a bucket, on the sheets, on Doctor Johnson as he fought to stem the flow. I stood resolutely at the side of the bed, having made my choice, my daughter, first. I felt light headed at the sight of all that blood, but I was not going down on to the floor. Debbie needed me and I clung to the side of the bed, until the dizziness passed.
"Why?", I asked Dr Johnston
"Too big a baby, too much Syntocinon and too long a wait", he
answered.
I nodded, I had known it all along, the baby should have been out twelve hours ago. Doctor Johnson was able to control the post partum hemorrhage, but Debbie had lost an enormous amount of blood and it was touch and go whether she had a blood transfusion. Something Doctor Johnson did not want to happen.
I was shell shocked. There was no baby and Debbie asked for her baby. I assured her she was in the nursery and went out in to the hall to go and check on baby. And there coming down the hall was the rescue team. Alena, Mara and Jade. They had caught two buses to get there and delightedly asked for news. They both cried when I told them, that Debbie was a Mother.
They had ran in the rain and were wet and shaking,
"Debbie's a Mother at long last", said Mara. "She's mothered us all and now she's a Mother."
I didn't explain about the hemorrhage nor that the baby was nowhere to be found. Dr Johnston had left and another Doctor beckoned me to the door. Mara and Alena silenced as I went in. The doctor, a female, stood at the bed, with Jan, Andrews Mother, and she asked us to draw the curtains around the bed. I looked at Debbie and she was crying.
"you have got to be kidding me" was my thought.
It was explained to us that Ashleigh, this new and big strong baby was seriously ill, having swallowed Muconium and had inhaled it prior to birth and now had what is called Meconium Aspiration Syndrome.
One of the worst cases the Hospital had seen and Ashleigh was going to the Royal Childrens Hospital as soon as possible.
I'm sure that when the curtains were pulled around Debbie her heart had stopped. But I knew she would be OK. The baby was full term, healthy and strong. Debbie asked me if the baby would be OK.
"She's a Hancock, girl, she will be fine, she's strong and a fighter"
and I knew it, felt it and went outside to tell Alena and Mara. The news was shattering and Mara suggested we go to the hospital chapel and pray, for Debbie and for her baby.
So we did. We asked God for help and Lauren for help and we went back to the room. I persuaded the girls to go, take my car, take tiny Jade home and be safe and warm and I would be in touch.
Then I went to the nursery. I didn't find her at first, not with the normal babies in the nursery, anyway. There was no Andrew to guide me to her.
But off to the side I saw the nursing staff working on a baby, her body bare, her chest heaving, shallowly and rapidly. Mine, my grand daughter, covered in monitors and struggling to live.
I went back to the labour ward. Andrew, Debbie and Jan all there. I thought she's going to live, she's going to live. Jan was a nurse herself and was grave. I stayed with Debbie and the others left. She was very weak from blood loss.
"I don't want to see her Mum", she said.
"I don't want to see her before she goes to the Children's Hospital"
"OK!", I said.
"What if she dies?" was my thought and looking at Debbie I knew she didn't want to see her child because if she was going to die, that last sight would kill her. But I knew that baby was not going to die, not on my watch and certainly not today.
So Debbie was put in a room with a Mother who had just had a baby, a healthy one, who lay beside her in a bassinet. Debbie was beyond distress, lying there waiting for her baby to be all right, somehow.
I said, "Are you sure you don't want to see her?"
"No", said Debbie, resolute.
I went out into the darkened corridor and the cavalry arrived in the form of two men wheeling an enormous glass humidicrib, silently in the darkness, big lights on top. lighting the way.
"Where is she". they said in unison.
"Mum needs to say goodbye before we go"
"In there,". I pointed. Betraying my daughters wishes,
"bugger it, she was seeing her baby", I alone decided, the men had forced it and I carried it out.
They wheeled that enormous big piece of life saving equipment right up to Debbie's bed. And she turned over and looked.
She was able to reach in and touch her and say goodbye for a little while. And then she was gone to the Royal Children's, the best place in the world for a sick baby.
And Debbie and I cried, when she went. Ashleigh was in God's and Lauren's hands and her fate was to be decided over the next few days. Andrew was with the baby, an already devoted father. An insanely in love father.
I went home shattered, climbing in to a warm bed and passing out for a while and when I came to, returned to the hospital. My dad had rung from Darwin, he was in the last stages of terminal prostrate cancer and left a message in the answering machine that ironically Debbie had given to me.
"love to Debbie" he said, "And love to the baby", he rang from so far away in Darwin. So far away in life, facing his imminent death. in pain but thinking of me, his daughter. And that was it, I was out the door.
Andrew ran between both hospitals, Dandenong and the Royal Women's and I began to see the very decent and honourable Man that Andrew is.
He was tireless in his devotion and would not give up. I arrived beside Debbie, She was so very pale and tired and languished in bed, the staff telling her she was "very ill" and was to stay in bed and recover while her baby was miles away, fighting for life.
"Get out of bed", I said to her.
Debbie listlessly looked at me
"I can't, I'm too ill they said,"
"I don't give a fuck what they say, you are getting out of this bed and you are getting dressed in normal clothes and we are going to the baby, NOW", I said.
"What if I fall, Mum ?" she replied.
"Then I will pick you up, but you are getting out of this bed and having a shower and I will dress you, and we are going to the baby, because if you don't, you won't bond with the baby"
and that was that.
"You are not "ill", you've just had a baby and you've lost a lot of blood but you will be OK" I told her,
"Your daughter needs you and we are going there, now, and if anyone argues about it, I will take responsibility, OK ?"
She swung her legs to the edge of the bed and I held her as she made her way to the shower. I left her there but she called me back.
"you are going to have to hold me", she said.
So I supported her, this tall daughter of mine, averting my eyes at first. I hadn't seen Debbie naked since a baby and she was always so very strong and dignified and modest.
But Mother and daughter needed to be elsewhere and she needed my help to do it. She dressed slowly and with care, normal street clothes. leggings and top and when she sat back on the bed, exhausted, she looked better.
Much better. I insisted we go for a little walk. So we walked the corridor a little and I held on to her and she didn't fall.
And she went to her baby, all those miles away, and saw her and stroked her. They had suppressed Ashleigh's breathing and machines breathe for her.
There wasn't one part of her body that wasn't covered in electrodes or tubes and still she fought, she fought.
And it was touch and go for a while. Our hearts stopped when they took off the machine that was breathing for her, I think it didn't work the first time but she breathed on her own, eventually
Rhen Mother and Daughter began their long painful journey towards life, together. And Andrew stayed strong and calm, and helped us all.
And weeks later Ashleigh went home and proceeded to scream the house down and nowhere in the world was there a sound more lovely.
Love Nana Bwuckshaw
