A 76-hour Labour - Burst My Brain

I suffered three days of agony…followed by three years of hell

- Grace Mountain

Another wave of awful sickness washed over me – I’d missed a period, too.

‘I should take a test,’ I told my boyfriend, Mike, 26.

To my surprise – I found myself looking at two blue lines.

Wow!

It wasn’t planned.

It was January, 2013, and we’d been together for just four months after meeting in the pub I ran.

I already had a son, then 7, from a previous relationship.

But we were so excited, and I really loved being pregnant.

Two years earlier, after years of pain and exhaustion, I’d been diagnosed with Chiari II malformation.

It’s where the brain slumps to the base of the skull, pushing down on the spinal cord, and there’s no cure. I’d had brain surgery to remove a piece of my vertebrae from my spine to release pressure, and I’d coped by using pain management.

Weirdly, pregnancy helped relieve the symptoms. In October 2012, I went into labour, But, after 24 hours, baby

Patrick still hadn’t arrived. Something’s not right,

I began to fret.

Midwives reassured me I wasn’t dilated enough yet.

But I was in agony, exhausted. Another 48 hours passed.

‘He should be here by now,’ I cried, desperately.