Nearly 17 weeks ago (tomorrow) our first daughter (third baby) came into this world and surprised everyone, born very quickly, and painfully, a few days before my planned c-section! I was 35 weeks and 2 days pregnant and had been suspecting my baby was coming early from the 31 week mark, going in and out of hospital, having steroid injections, contractions, having baby's heart monitored constantly, and with gestational diabetes, it was a tiring ordeal and I just wanted my baby out and safe so I could start enjoying her. After having two sons, Isaac aged 4 and Seth aged 2, I was longing for our third to be a girl and the sonographer told us on our 20 week scan that it looked like we were having a little girl! I didn't want to believe it and get my hopes up too much but I started buying little pink things eventually, unable to resist the image of my baby girl wearing her tiny dresses and frilly skirts.
After a short labour on 15 May 2012, baby Halette Nicole came into the world cried briefly and went quiet. She weighed 6lb 1oz, I was worried the staff hadn't noted this down as the labour was so quick and unexpected they didn't have my notes to hand! I had to stay laid on the bed due to complications with the afterbirth. I kept asking if she was okay and remember the nurses and midwives telling me she was having a lot of suctioning because she had lots of mucous in her throat but that she was fine and breathing well. Eventually they brought Hallie over to say hello to me. I noticed the dark purple patches on her face and neck and asked what it was. The nurses told me, in a very casual manner, that she probably had congestion or it was a birthmark. I was relieved as I thought she had been starved of oxygen which had made her go purple.
It wasn't until the next morning that the consultant neonatologist came to visit me in my room where I was staying with Hallie in a cot next to me and told me it was in fact a vascular birthmark - a Port Wine Stain. This meant nothing to me at the time as I had never had any experience of birthmarks except for a little stork mark I had between my eyebrows which flared up and down when I cried or got hot and disappeared as a teenager. It was after this I switched on my ipad and started my research.
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