“You realise everyone is going through something”
During pregnancy, Persia Castellani was told that there was a chance her baby would be born with a disability. She spoke to us openly about how that felt and the process that followed, as well as her speedy birth and early months of motherhood.
Photos: Lucy Morris
Interview: Alex KohanskyCan you take me back to the moment you discovered you were pregnant?
Well, we weren’t really trying, but we weren’t ‘not trying.’ As soon as we weren’t careful, we found out that we were pregnant. So it was quite a surprise. I came home from a karaoke work thing and had this feeling that maybe I could be pregnant. I did a test straight away and the line was there, but it was faint. Then I did two more tests and the lines were definitely there. We were both very happy.
Did you keep it a secret?
I told my mum straight away but we waited for the 3-month scan before telling other people. It was tricky. I wasn’t always feeling well. I was tired and sick and a bit forgetful and couldn’t tell my manager at work. Then we had the scan and it turned out to be a bit of a different day than the one we imagined. We were told that we were high risk for Down’s Syndrome.
Can you describe what happened on that day?
They did our blood tests and noticed the nuchal fluid at the back of my baby’s head was abnormally high. They told me there was a 1 in 50 chance that he had Down’s and that we had the option of having an amniocentesis - a test to find out if he had it.
What did you decide to do?
We did the amniocentesis, but it was a bit scary as it involves a risk of miscarriage [1 in 100]. Even though it’s a small chance, if something were to happen, it would have been our choice to have the test. So that was difficult.
I think it was three weeks between finding out the fluid was higher than they expected and getting that test result. I don’t know how we got through it, but my husband and I were very supportive of one another and we were finally told he didn’t have Down’s.
Then, after that, we had more news - we found out he had some other defect in one of his chromosomes which meant there was a 50% chance he would be born with some kind of disability.
So now you had a new thing to investigate?
Exactly. And that time we had the wait over Christmas. We were left to Google what it could all mean until after Christmas when we spoke to a genetic specialist. She said we could take a blood test and to find out if me or my husband also had this chromosomal defect - if we did have it, that would mean it was likely our baby would not be disabled. If we didn’t have the defect ourselves, there was a high chance he would be disabled.
Oh gosh. What happened and how were you feeling during this time?
We were up and down and wondering what to do. We had an extra scan while we were away in Dubai and they said he looked fine. We’d had all of these mixed messages and were very stressed. But it also felt completely out of our hands and a part of me felt, ‘if you don’t know what these tests mean, then just don’t do them in the first place!’
In the end, we did the test. We received the call with the result when we were in Japan on our delayed honeymoon. They told us that I did have the chromosomal defect, which meant there was a low risk of our baby being disabled. At this point we were 5 and a half months pregnant.
And once you’d got that message, how was the rest of your pregnancy?
Compared to that, everything was quite smooth!
And how was the birth?
Very quick! I just remember I started feeling the contractions on the Thursday, but they weren't very strong until the Friday morning. Then they started to ramp up quite quickly and by 3pm we were on our way to the hospital.
This is where Baby & Bump Club was really helpful… My contractions started to slow down once we arrived at the hospital and I remember our instructor, Laura, had told us that this could happen. The hospital midwives kept trying to send us home, but I said to my husband, “there’s no way we're going home.” The contractions may not have been very close together but I didn’t think they could get stronger than they were! Then, when I was walking back from doing a urine sample, my waters broke. I felt that my baby was coming, so they checked me and said, “Give me a push” and I was like, “What?” And they said, “You’re right - he’s coming!”
His heartbeat started to slow down so we had a quick transfer to the delivery suite. It seemed his shoulder was stuck. At that point I changed position and he just came out. He was a blue baby and me and my husband noticed straight away that he wasn’t crying. They quickly did some resuscitation and everything was fine. They gave him back to me and that was it!
How were you feeling? Did you feel the love immediately or did it come later?
I don’t remember to be honest. The first feeling was like, “Why is he blue?” When I look back at pictures, he looked a bit scary. I would say that the feelings of love came in minutes, not days after though.
What was it like for you when you came home with him?
We had some problems very early on with breastfeeding. He didn’t latch in the hospital and he didn’t latch at home either. It took us a while to realise that he wasn’t feeding enough, but I really wanted to breastfeed.
How did you realise he wasn’t feeding enough?
The health visitor did a check and realised he wasn’t drinking enough. They suggested a drop-in group session with a lactation consultant, but it wasn’t until we had some one-on-one sessions that the consultant really honed in and confirmed he wasn’t feeding enough.
Unfortunately I think the lactation consultant had a bit of a one-track focus with getting him on the breast, rather than considering the bottle and there was a feeling that she might be disappointed in me if we didn’t make it work. I already had it in my mind that I was going to be a breastfeeding mum, and the way she communicated added to the pressure I felt to make breastfeeding work.
In the end my husband was like, “This is ridiculous, it doesn’t matter, he just needs to eat.” He was amazing. He researched the best pump and suggested hybrid feeding. But at the time I thought it meant I was going to be like a farm-yard animal! I didn’t like the thought that someone else could feed my baby; anyone could feed them and I’d be somewhere else pumping away. At the time it was a horrible feeling, but it turned out to be the best decision and, in the end, we forgot about feeding from the breast and mostly fed pumped milk.
That’s amazing. How long were you pumping for?
I think, exclusively, eight months. Then we started bringing formula in until he was 11 months.
Overall how was early motherhood after that period?
Funnily enough, I think we had out best moments when he was on the changing mat at about three, four, five months. He was always smiling.
I would meet up with the Bump & Baby Club group a couple of times a week, which made it a completely different experience because we were talking about all of these things together. You realise everyone is going through something, and it was a great to get out of the house and spend the afternoon with other mums.
Has becoming a mother changed you?
I think I feel completely different. I have slowed down in some ways, because the time does go quite quickly. So now I spend more quality time doing things at home, or, I don’t know, going to a farmer’s market.
The other nice thing is that I feel a little bit more mature and also more connected to other women who have given birth. So for example, my relationship with my manager at work, who has two babies, has changed completely because now we’re coming from a place of familiarity. We will have little conversations where we’re just making sure that the other one has slept, or we ask how an evening has been if we’ve had after hours work commitments. As a mum you can’t do everything and it can be really hard. You want to spend as much time with your child as possible, and it’s difficult sometimes choosing between that and how seriously you’re taken at work. So having these conversations with my manager has really helped.
