AWAKENING REAL LIFE
Charlotte Lake, 23, from Annan, didn’t realise that her newborn daughter’s snore was asign of things worse to come...
Trying to get aquick snooze, we couldn’t help but giggle. ‘Oh my God, she is aproper little snorer,’ both me and my fiancé Nathan, 25, laughed, watching our newborn daughter Ava-Rose in June last year.
In fact, unlike our eldest Finlay, now three, Ava certainly loved her sleep.
It didn’t matter where she was, she’d fall asleep at the drop of ahat.
She was awhole new version of sleepy –any parent’s dream.
Especially after we’d experienced anot very glamorous pregnancy.
Ihad bad morning sickness, so it wasn’t asmooth ride.
Fin was excited about being a big brother, always wanting to bounce on the pregnancy ball with me.
Nathan and Ieven bought him adoll to practise with.
However, flinging it around by the legs, it wasn’t the reaction that we expected!
Only then, on 25 June 2023 at 6.21pm, weighing 7lbs 12oz, our baby girl arrived at Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary in three pushes.
To put it bluntly, Ava shot out like awaterslide.
So, when we realised that Ava slept like adream baby, snoring her head off, it felt like the calm after the storm.
Only, as days turned into a week, aniggling doubt started to creep in.
‘I’m not sure she is supposed to be this tired,’ Iadmitted to Nathan, as Ava started to dose off mid-feed. ‘Something’s not quite right.’
As the week went on, the snoring sounded more like Ava had abad cold instead.
However, with the midwife ready to discharge us from home visits on 4July last year, Ihad to say how we felt.
‘Ava’s breathing doesn’t sound right. She sounds snotty,’ I confessed.
Checking Ava’s heart rate, counting her breaths per minute, the midwife’s face quickly dropped.
‘I’m going to call the hospital,’ she panicked.
Finding out more, Ava’s heart was going at 220bpm, her breath count double what it should have been, too.
‘They want to send an ambulance,’ the midwife said.
We will get there and it will be nothing, I thought.
‘Where are you going, Mummy?’ Fin cried, getting a little upset as both Nathan and Iwere packing abag.
However, thankfully, Nathan still had aweek of paternity leave left, so he was able to stay at home with him.
‘She will be fine,’ Nathan said, kissing me goodbye, as the ambulance arrived with blue lights outside.
It’s just afluke, I thought. Flooring it on the M3 to Dumfries Royal Infirmary, I sat on the bed in the back of the ambulance with Ava in my arms, needing to hold an oxygen mask
