MY INSID FELL OUT

Kelly Maynard, 32, from Bolton, had breezed through her pregnancy but more than a baby was about to pop out...

After having three children, I knew the signs.

Nausea, backache, tender boobs.

‘I can’t be pregnant again,’ I said to my husband Ray.

After a difficult last pregnancy with my third child Daisy, we’d decided not to have any more kids.

The doctors had even warned me against falling pregnant again.

But, staring at the blue line on the plastic stick, there was no denying it.

‘What are we going to do?’ I asked Ray, worried.

‘It will be OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll just have to take extra care of you.’

But over the next few weeks, I suffered cramping, so the doctors sent me for tests.

They feared the pregnancy could be ectopic, but scans showed that everything looked fine.

After a rocky start, I prepared myself for things to get worse.

With Daisy, I’d been bed-bound by the time I hit my third trimester.

But as my bump grew, I was pleasantly surprised.

‘Maybe this time everything will be OK,’ I said, feeling hopeful.

At 17 weeks, we found out we were having another girl.

Daisy, four, her sister Mia, five, and brother Kaydan, 12, were all so excited about the new baby.

And as my due date drew closer and closer, we all prepared for our new arrival.

Then at 37 weeks, arriving home from the school run, I felt a sudden pain in my tummy.

I grabbed the side of the kitchen table, doubling over in pain. Then I felt something wet trickling down my legs. I thought my waters were breaking, but when I went to the loo, I realised it was blood – and lots of it.

Panicking, I grabbed my phone and called Ray, and then my mum, Leslie, asking her to come round.

As I waited, trying to stay calm, the pain became worse and worse.

By the time Mum arrived, I could barely stand.

‘I don’t know what’s happening,’ I cried, panicking.

‘I’m going to call an ambulance,’ Mum said. ‘Everything will be OK.’

Ray arrived soon after, followed by the paramedics, and I was rushed to the hospital.

As I was checked out by doctors and midwives, I could hear them talking about complications.

I panted through the pain, gripping Ray’s hand through each contraction. Then… ‘Your placenta has failed,’ a nurse said. ‘We’re going to take you for an emergency Caesarean.’

There was a blur of activity, and then I was wheeled to theatre with

Ray by my side.

The surgeons got to work and, minutes later, our little girl was born, weighing 5lb 11oz.

She was wrapped in a blanket and placed in my arms.

‘She’s perfect,’ I smiled, looking into her dark eyes. We named her Rosie-anne. Thankfully, she was completely healthy, so we were both moved to the maternity ward to recover.

The next day, the nurses encouraged me to get up and start walking around to speed up the healing process.

But as I shuffled up and down the ward, the pain in my stomach became unbearable.

‘Should it really hurt this much?’ I asked a nurse, who reassured me it could be painful at first.

Yet none of the other new mums

seemed to be suffering as much. Still, I told myself it was normal after a Caesarean, and just 24 hours later, I was discharged.

But within an hour of getting home, I was crying out in pain. ‘This doesn’t feel right,’ I said. ‘Just sit down and take it easy,’ Ray said. I could barely walk or even hold Rosie-anne, and the pain was just getting worse.

The next day, a midwife came over to check on us.

‘I’m in agony,’ I said to her.

She took a look at my stitches under my dressing.

‘It looks fine to me,’ she said. ‘There’s no sign of any infection.’

Feeling more reassured, I just hoped and prayed that the pain would subside.

The next morning, Mum came over to see Rosie-anne.

It should have been a lovely day filled with cuddles and laughter.

But instead, I was wincing every time I tried to move.

‘You go and rest,’ Mum said. ‘I’ll look after Rosie-anne.’

Clutching my stomach, I needed Mum’s help to do everything.

By the next morning, I was so crippled with pain, I knew I needed to go back to the hospital.

‘It feels like a concrete slab is crushing my stomach,’ I told Ray.

‘I’m going to call an ambulance,’ he said.

The pain was radiating from the cut across my stomach from the surgey.

It almost felt like something was trying to push its way out of me.

Over the phone, Ray explained to the operator what was going on.

‘They’re saying we should take a look,’ he told me.

So I pulled up my pyjama top and glanced down at my stomach. Then I screamed. ‘Oh, my God! What is that?’ Underneath the blood-soaked dressing, there was something pink and fleshy pushing its way through the incision. It didn’t look real. ‘They think it could be your bowel,’ Ray said, in utter shock.

The operator told us to go to the hospital, but there was no way I could get into the car.

‘Please send an ambulance,’ I begged.

Eventually, paramedics arrived and took me to hospital.

There, I was rushed on to the ward and given morphine.

But with my insides exposed, it did little to ease the pain as I writhed in agony.

After four hours, I was finally taken into theatre.

When I came round in intensive care hours later, I was very groggy and confused.

A doctor explained that my perineum wall hadn’t been sewn up properly after the Caesarean. He said that if I’d waited any longer to come in, my bowel tissue could have died and I’d have needed a permanent ileostomy bag.

I was grateful that hadn’t happened, but I couldn’t understand how my Caesarean had gone so wrong in the first place.

Once I’d moved out of intensive care, Ray was able to bring Rosieanne in for a visit.

But being stuck in a hospital bed, unable to feed or bathe my newborn baby, felt like torture.

Those early days are so precious, but thanks to my botched operation, I spent mine in hospital.

Finally, after 10 agonising days, I was discharged.

Rosie-anne is a year old now, and while she’s doing brilliantly, I’m still struggling.

The wound has healed, but I’m still in a huge amount of pain and I have problems with my bowel.

The scar across my tummy is huge and ugly and it’s left me feeling too self-conscious to ever wear a bikini again.

I rely on strong medication and because of the pain, I’m unable to go back to work.

I’ve had meetings at the hospital and while they’ve apologised for my care, it doesn’t change the situation I’ve been left in.

I still can’t believe that what should have been a simple operation ended with my bowel falling out.

I’m just thankful that I survived to tell the tale.