My name is Tymothee Young and I'm the muma
of three sunshine babies of 18, 15 and 11 years old, a perfect storm 14 months and a beautiful little rainbow baby 5 weeks.
This is the the story of my perfect storm, Tavi-Rose Lyra Young. She was still born last April 2nd (2019) at 4.55am.
But this is not just her story but also I hope a story that informs people of just how dangerous hyperemesis gravidarum can truly be.
Tavi wasn't planned but still wanted so much from the moment I knew she existed. My morning sickness was nothing terrible, wore then my last two pregnancies but nothing like my first. It wasn't until I got admitted to hospital at about 16 weeks with a bad water infection that all my troubles began. I'm very prone to getting UTIs and it's worse in pregnancy, this one just happened to set off hyperemesis, as I have had in previous pregnancies.
For the rest of my pregnancy with Tavi-Rose I was constantly in and out of hospital, I probably spent more time in then out. Constantly being sick, keeping nothing down but some water and some of my tablets. It's these tablets, or really just the paracetamol that eventually became the cause of my little girls death.
I was told it was safe to keep taking my pain killers that I need for a genetic condition, so I never thought once the doctors could be so wrong.
I was 23 weeks when I was admitted in to hospital once again with severe bladder pain and I couldn't stop being sick. I was finally told buy my consultant that they would start me on steroids to stop the hyperemesis, as nothing else was working and I had already lost about 10kg. But up until that weekend my little girl was perfect and healthy.
I never got the steroid injections because I started to feel very confused and out of it like I was drugged. Soon there was doctors everywhere and I was loosing more and more of a hold on reality until eventually for me the world just went black. The story until I woke up days later is what I've been told as I was put into a coma to help me recover.
What had happened was that my liver had started to fail, it had stored all the paracetamol I'd been able to keep down as my metabolism had shut down with no food being processed. Once my liver couldn't hold anymore it dumped it all into my body and releasing enzymes that turned my blood to acid the consistency of water. I know I was in the ICU at my own hospital as it's the last thing I remember, but I was only there for a short while before I was moved to Leeds because they are liver specialists and my own hospital thought I could die or need a transplant.
That was Friday the 29th march 2019 and I woke up very very late on Monday the 1st April. I remember nothing in between, just blackness, not even a dream. I remember fuzzy images of the ICU then nothing until I woke in a dark room with a doctor stood over me. Then came the most devastating words I've ever heard words that will haunt me forever and words my husband should have been able to tell me in the right way. Because I don't know what else that doctor said but all I remember is someone I don't know standing over me and saying mater of factly "your baby died".
After that it went black again. I somewhat remember Tavi's birth, as I should of had a C-section, but my blood pressure was so low they let my body do what it wanted. I remember her being born, silent in a dark ICU room, on 2nd April at 4.55am. she weighed 1.05lb and was 11inches long. I remember not wanting to see her then because my head was so confused and fuzzy and I wanted my first memory of Tavi-Rose to be clear.
After that there was another stretch of blackness, until I started to come round properly but it wasn't until the night of the 2nd that I was asked if I wanted to see her. My husband had already been to see her but now my three older girls were there too. We met her together as a family and spent some time with her before my husband had to get my girls back home.
I was moved back to my own hospital the next day where I was placed in a bereavement room on labour ward. Tavi-Rose was placed in a room just across the hall.
There are only guilt and regrets about the time I had with Tavi before the coroner came to take her for the post mortem. My head took so long to clear from the poison and the coma that I missed so much that I so desperately need now, and no one else helped me. I was never told of all the things I should do. Holding her, dressing her, giving her a hat, washing her little face, taking enough pictures especially one of me and her together. And my brain just wouldn't connect with my mouth or the situation until it was too late.
Sadly I think that once the midwifes found out that paracetamol poisoning was why my daughter died they too easily jumped to the conclusion that it only happens if you purposely take too many as so few of them askef if I wanted to see her or asked her name or about her. Mostly I was just left alone in a room at the end of a hall with only a few midwifes that already knew me so trusted my hospital notes. The worst part of my time there was being accused be a psychiatrist that I murdered my baby girl, just because he didn't want to believe what I was saying.
2019 was the worst mother's Day weekend of my life, and now sadly mother's Day will always symbolise her death, so it's a day I can no longer celebrate.
Tavi-Rose was then cremated on the 2nd May 2019, the day she became a month old.
I just want to thank my perfect storm Tavi-Rose for the happyness she gave me, and now for the beautiful little rainbow she sent in the form of her little brother Rémi Tavious Gray Peel Young who just turned 5weeks.
We love you tiny girl, forever my jelly bean.