Rachel Rimmer was a week shy of her due date when she began to feel ill
Rachel Rimmer met her daughter, Betsy, 12 hours after she was born(Image: Rachel Rimmer)
A pregnant mum was a week away from her due date when she began suffering from headaches so severe she was “screaming in pain”. Rachel Rimmer, 33, had an “absolutely amazing pregnancy” for the first eight months. But soon after arriving at work for her last day before maternity leave, she began to feel ill.
The secondary school teacher described how she started experiencing severe headaches, vomiting and neck soreness to the point she was “screaming in pain”. Rachel’s husband, Alex, who works at the same school, rushed her to Ormskirk Hospital for a series of tests. Doctors told her the baby was fine, but even after anti-sickness injections and paracetamol, the headaches and vomiting persisted.
The mum-of-two, who had dropped her three-year-old son, Roman, at nursery that morning, said: “I remember thinking, ‘how can I have been so fine this morning?’ It’s really scary how everything can change so quickly.
“I had an absolutely amazing pregnancy. I had no complications all the way through. My blood pressure was always normal and I was really relaxed.”
After doctors established the problem was neurological, Rachel was transferred by ambulance to Southport Hospital. Following an MRI scan, doctors gave Rachel the devastating news she had a bleed on the brain.
Rachel said: “Even when they took me to A&E, nothing was clicking as to what was wrong with me. It was only when they told me I might have had a bleed on my brain that it started to hit me.
“I wasn’t thinking about myself at all. The only thing I was thinking about was the baby. My kids are my world. All I was thinking was if the kids were going to be okay.”
After the bleed was identified, Rachel was transferred to the Walton Centre, where a lumbar drain was used to drain excess fluid on the brain caused by the bleed.
Doctors told Rachel her safest option was to deliver the baby as soon as possible so she could continue with her treatment. As the nearest maternity hospital was Liverpool Women’s, a team of consultants and midwives were transferred to the Walton Centre.
Baby Betsy was delivered by C-section the next day on March 13 – eight days before Rachel’s due date – but Rachel said “she was ready to come out.”
Rachel with her husband, Alex, and baby Betsy(Image: Rachel Rimmer)
She said: “I was really nervous, even though I knew she was full term and I knew a C-section would be fine. I just wasn’t mentally prepared to have a baby that day.”
Rachel could not meet Betsy until 12 hours after she was born, having given birth to her under general anaesthetic and taken to ICU immediately afterwards.
She said: “That was really difficult but I knew it needed to be done. To look after her, I needed to be healthy first.”
Following two weeks of recovery, Rachel was sent home – but within 12 hours, a severe headache woke her from her sleep. Neck pain and vomiting followed, and Rachel had no option but to return to A&E.
By this time, she was showing signs of deliriousness and was non-responsive. Eventually, she was put into an induced coma for her own safety.
Following a CT scan, Rachel was told she had hydrocephalus – a build-up of fluid in the brain. The excess fluid puts pressure on the brain, which can damage it. If left untreated, hydrocephalus can be fatal.
Rachel stayed at the Walton Centre for a further four months after her symptoms came back(Image: Rachel Rimmer)
The next day, Rachel was transferred back to the Walton Centre, where stayed for four weeks after undergoing brain surgery. During the surgery, a shunt was implanted into her brain, allowing the excess fluid to flow through the shunt to another part of the body. From there, it’s absorbed into the bloodstream, preventing a build-up.
During her four-week stay at the hospital, Alex was able to bring Betsy to see Rachel every day, thanks to the Walton Centre’s Home from Home accommodation, designed to offer the comforts of home to families who want or need to stay close to their loved one undergoing treatment. It’s provided free of charge, funded by The Walton Centre Charity.
Rachel, who lives in Southport, said: “I obviously didn’t want to be apart from Betsy, having only just had her. So the fact Alex was able to bring Betsy to the hospital to see me everyday was a massive help. That’s where she was from the minute she woke up to the minute she went to sleep.
“She’s such a good baby. She’s so smiley and happy; she’s just so chill. I’ve been quite lucky, depending on the way you look at it. You might be the unluckiest person in the world to have a bleed when you’re pregnant. But I honestly feel so lucky that both times we caught it really fast.
“I had amazing care at every single hospital I went to. Betsy’s fine, I’m fine. I feel really lucky.”