A mother-of-two has advised parents to carefully consider sterilisation after tragically losing her baby girl just two months after having tubal ligation surgery.
Katherine Lawson, 27, from Perth, had planned to have the operation right after her caesarean section as she and her partner Ben felt their young family was complete.
She gave birth to little Imogen on the 23rd of February and while she was still on the operating table, doctors performed the second surgery.
But during the operation Ms Lawson was unaware that her newborn baby was dying.
Katherine Lawson, 27, (pictured) had planned to have a tubal ligation right after her caesarean section as she felt her young family was complete
‘The birth and C-section went well and when Immy cried Ben and I looked at each other and we knew she was a girl because her cry was completely different to the boys’,’ Ms Lawson told Daily Mail Australia.
‘Off to the table she went and Ben took a few photos and sat with me because I was having more surgery.’
Ms Lawson said doctors were spending ‘quite a bit of time’ with Imogen but when she and Ben asked if anything was wrong they were reassured.
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‘They said they thought she might have a bit of fluid still in her lungs so they took her upstairs and that wasn’t a problem at all,’ Ms Lawson said.
‘But after they had finished and I was wheeled into recovery we still hadn’t heard anything so Ben went upstairs to see what was going on… that’s when he saw how bad everything was.
‘Imogen had been intubated and had a chest drain in because her lungs had collapsed. Ben came downstairs and told doctors I needed to get up their immediately.’
‘Imogen had been intubated and had a chest drain in because her lungs had collapsed’, Ms Lawson said
But as Ms Lawson was wheeled in, doctors were already wheeling Imogen out to transfer her to another hospital.
‘They opened a little hole in her crib and I stuck my arm in and saw her for the first time… but my arm was pretty much being dragged by doctors trying to move her,’ Ms Lawson said.
‘Imogen was dying and they needed to get her to another hospital immediately.’
By this stage the couple knew how sick Imogen was, but doctors were as confused as they were as to why this had occurred.
As Ms Lawson watched her partner and her newborn head off to to another hospital, she was struggling with recovery and was throwing up after having an adverse reaction during her surgery.
‘They opened a little hole in her crib and I stuck my arm in and saw her for the first time,’ Ms Lawson said, talking of the moments before her girl was taken away
‘I had just had a fresh C-section so throwing up wasn’t friendly at all,’ Ms Lawson said.
‘I was just sitting there thinking “What the f**k?”. Everything was just such a big blur and I couldn’t believe any of it was real.’
The following day Ms Lawson was given special leave to visit Imogen who was in the Neonative Intensive Care Unit at Princess Margaret Hospital.
Imogen was being kept alive with ventilation machines and medications and doctors told Ms Lawson that her daughter had pulmonary hypertension.
‘Basically she was struggling to adapt to breathing and she also had very high pressures in her heart. The machines were keeping her alive,’ Ms Lawson said.
‘It was shocking to see her like that. The first two weeks were touch and go so we couldn’t touch her. I got my first cuddle at 2.5 weeks.
Imogen was sent to the Neonative Intensive Care Unit where she was kept alive by machines
‘Having had two pregnancies and two normal births it was absolute hell for me because your kids are the one thing you are in control of. To have somebody dictate when and how I can touch and hold my child was so frustrating. I think I held her for four hours… I sat on the rocking chair just holding her.’
At this stage, Ms Lawson was still recovering from two major operations and caring for her two little boys Nicholas, seven and Matthew, two.
‘It was ridiculous. Every time I spoke to someone they were like “I don’t know how you are doing this” but what choice did I have? You can’t wake up one morning and say “Okay this is too hard” you just have to do it,’ Ms Lawson said.
‘Every day Ben and I would sit there and talk to Imogen and ask her to keep fighting, but the machines were doing everything for her which was a bad sign.
‘It was just a sit and wait game. The doctors are still baffled to this day as to what went wrong.’
Tragically, little Imogen lost her fight for life on May 6th
Despite Imogen showing signs of improvement, doctors decided to give her a tracheostomy operation when she was around one month and two weeks, to give her a safer airway.
‘Her surgery was awful as it took us back to day one which was absolutely horrible. It was very touch and go but we knew it was the right thing as later she was smiling and seemed much happier,’ Ms Lawson said.
But despite Imogen improving slightly, she soon needed to be ventilated again and tragically lost her fight on May 6th.
While Imogen’s death certificate says she passed from idiopathic pulmonary hypertension, doctors are still unsure why and how it occurred.
Ms Lawson hopes that by sharing her story, others consider their options before opting to have their tubes tied shortly after birth.
‘I was on the table and we had our three babies and me having it there and then would have saved us from falling pregnant straight away and also saved him from having to have surgery later on so it made sense,’ Ms Lawson said.
‘But now, I would never ever recommend that anybody do it immediately after having a child, you need to recover.
‘It’s a permanent thing and it’s human nature to want what you can’t have. Nothing is permanent… how you feel at that very moment isn’t how you might feel in six to 12 months. Don’t take options away from yourself.’
Ms Lawson and her partner have considered having another child but are waiting to make a decision
‘If I could save just one mother from going through what we’ve been through I would be happy.’
Ms Lawson and her partner have considered having another child, but are waiting until February to make a decision.
‘We have looked into it. It won’t be anytime soon but I needed to know what options were available. At this stage my options are tubal reversal or IVF,’ she explained.
‘The reversal is more expensive than IVF and there are more risks so we will probably opt for IVF.’
‘Some days I desperately want another baby, but then I think, “what if it happens again?” But our bodies are healthy. Our doctors said we had more chance winning the lottery then Imogen dying the way she did,’ she also told Kidspot.
Ms Lawson also advises parents who are going through a similar situation with a newborn to take it all in and recognises that in some cases, life can just be ‘incredibly unfair.’
‘I would have started a journal. I would have written anything and everything down because now I am left with a blur because all your days combine into one. Express yourself,’ she said.
‘Take it all in and be as positive as you possibly can be regardless of the outcome.’