01 | Jaime Knight: Three Births, NAIT, Hospital Births, Low Platelets, NICU

Brittany Belmontes
Feb 4, 2020
4 min read

Jaime and her husband David live in Manitoba with their 3 beautiful girls Jorja, Scarlett and Gabriella; she does it all while staying at home, she maintains her at home kennel, breeds smooth coat terriers and has a photography business while her husband is gone 5 days in a row in a 10 day period. With her first Jorja she had a straight forward, easy pregnancy at 34+5 her water broke, she headed into hospital and after 58 hours of labour med free and when the Fetal Ejection Reflex kicked in 2 pushes later Jorja was born weighing 4lbs 13oz. Once she was born they noticed she was covered in bruised, Jaime had initially thought it was from having dogs jump up on her but she was reassured that wasn't not the cause. After some blood work they discovered Jorja's platelets were low, they ruled out any other causes and concluded that she had NAIT (Neonatal Alloimmune Thrombocytophenia). Jorja spent 13 days in NICU to make sure she was gaining weight, and had an IVIG treatment to help strengthen her platelets. When Jorja was around 17 months Jaime got pregnant with Scarlett, since her doctors knew about the NAIT this time Jaime went in for IVIG treatments once a week starting about 17 weeks. Just shy of 36 weeks Jaime went in for a cordocentesis which she needed to be put under and baby was given something to limit her movement in womb for the procedure. The results showed baby's platelets were low so when Jaime when Jaime woke up from the procedure she was informed that they had preformed an Intrauterine Transfusion. Just shy of 36 weeks that morning of Jaime's cordocentesis, as she was headed into hospital she was already going into labor and was getting contractions. I hopes to avoid another long labour they set Jaime up on an Oxytocin Drip to help strengthen her contractions. One of Jaime's nurses assumed right away she was going to want a Epidural but Jaime declined. After being on the drip for 20 hours Scarlett made her grand appearance weighing in at 6 pounds 11 ounces and was taken to the NICU but she was discharged by morning and they spend 5 days in hospital where Scarlett had a touch of jaundice and was losing a bit of weight before discharge. Almost 4 years after Scarlett was born Jaime conceived her 3rd child after getting a bout of nausea, she took a test that confirmed she was in fact pregnant. Jaime found Gabrielle's pregnancy to be a bit more of a challenge due to her having to do IVIG treatments twice a week for the NAIT and the process of these treatments take around 6-9 hours though she handled the treatments well though she did have some side effects from the treatments. Shortly before 36 weeks Jaime went into hospital to check baby's platelet levels by preforming a cordocentesis and Gabrielle's levels came back with a beautiful count so they were told to come back at on the Sunday at 37 weeks to be start up the labor process before since birth by 37 weeks was advised by her doctor for best outcomes. They had asked if it were possible for them to be induced that day rather than doing the 4 hour drive home to only come back a few days later but the staff said no and sent them home for the week. 6 am the following morning Jaime received a call to come in to hospital to be induced which she found a bit of humor in because they would have arranged a hotel stay had they known they would be heading back the following morning. They started the induction process by inserting a Cervical Gel (Prepidil) which caused some minor contractions but nothing too painful. Jaime headed back to the labour ward to be hooked up to an oxytocin drip, so Jaime decided to have a rest and woke up around 6 am and all contractions had faded away. The OB checked Jaime and she was at 3 cm so she offered to break Jaime's waters (Amniotomy) which Jaime agreed to and then contractions started picking up quickly! Jaime contacted her Doula to head over for some support as her contractions started pick up in length, while in labour Jaime felt drawn to sit on the toilet where with all 3 labour's she felt most comfortable; she explains she doesn't like being touched during labor and just likes to be left to herself to labor quietly, so when her nurse snuck out of the room for a bit Jaime headed into the bathroom to sit on the toilet where shes gets a few bearable contractions. David comes in to check on her and Jaime assured him shes fine where she is, after a few contractions Jaime realizes the Fetal Ejection Reflex has kicked in. Unable to speak puts her hand down to hold baby's head and after a 2nd push Gabrielle came out sunny side up, Jaime hollers out she just had a baby and her doula announces to all the nurses in the hall that Jaime had just birthed her baby. Everyone comes in to check on baby while Jaime unraveled the cord from Gabrielle's neck that was wrapped around twice and noticed that her umbilical cord had a true knot. The nurses wanted to take Gabrielle right away but Jaime declined and continued with her plan to allow for delayed cord clamping. Once the cord stopped pulsing Jaime walked over to bed where Gabrielle latched right on and had a good 2 hour feed, and nurses will still pushing to take Gabrielle down to NICU but Jaime was still adamant that she didn't need to go. After resting a bit Jaime notices things go a bit dark and the nurse told her that her blood pressure had dropped and that's why so after a quick lie down Jaime had finally eaten after a large stretch going without food. Jaime and David where in hospital for 4 days and Gabrielle was losing a bit of weight but within normal range and Jaime was not concerned at all and advocated for herself to go home. Her two older daughters were completely in love and couldn't love their newest baby sister anymore!