“I can’t feel my hands!”: Erin’s panic spiralled as her baby arrived too soon

Erin thought she had time. But one unexpected contraction at work launched a traumatic, three-week whirlwind that left scars she still carries today.

This story discusses traumatic birth, medical distress, and postnatal anxiety. Please take care while reading if these topics may be triggering for you.

Erin Horne hadn’t packed her hospital bag yet. She was 34 weeks pregnant, working in childcare, and used to pregnancy aches. When the dull, low-down pains started, she assumed it was pelvic pressure - maybe round ligament pain. Nothing urgent.

“I’d had irritable uterus in both pregnancies, so I just thought it was normal,” she says now.

But on Thursday June 23, 2022, everything changed. She was at work, tidying up after the babies’ lunch, when a sharp contraction stopped her in her tracks. “I was sweeping the floor, then went to put a load of bibs in the washing machine. As soon as I walked back into the classroom, this excruciating pain hit. I sat in the armchair, and my friend looked at me and said, ‘Are you okay?’ I just burst into tears and said, ‘No, I’m not.’”

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One minute she was cleaning up after lunch at work. The next, she was in surgery - and her baby was gone. Image: Supplied

She hadn’t eaten lunch. She left without her belongings. It would be weeks before she saw home again.

“I had toilet paper scrunched up in my undies. That’s how unprepared I was.”

Erin, then 35, was taken straight to the GP by her colleagues. She still thought she might get a pill and go home. But her contractions were regular - about two minutes apart - and an ambulance was called to take her to nearby Cooma Hospital.

“I’ll never forget the moment the GP wanted to do an exam and I realised I’d shoved scrunched up toilet paper in my undies instead of a liner. I was mortified,” she laughs. “Danielle, my step-in doula, and I were giggling through the panic.”

Even the GP visit felt surreal. Just four days earlier, Erin had been in Canberra shopping for her partner Scott’s birthday gift and taking her daughter Dottie, then two, for a little “girls' day” to get their nails done. She hadn’t felt the baby move overnight and presented to maternity out of caution - but everything checked out. “He started kicking in the car on the way,” she remembers.

Now, lying strapped to the back of an ambulance gurney, she was in labour.

“The paramedic was so nice - but he just kept talking,” she laughs. “I remember thinking, ‘Please, just stop. I can’t breathe through these contractions if you keep asking me questions.’”

Scott was snowboarding on the mountain when she rang him. “He asked if he should pick up Dottie. I was like, definitely not!”

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“I wasn’t allowed to see him. I was still in my gown, holding my phone. FaceTiming a newborn I hadn’t held.” Image: Supplied

“Seven centimetres. Baby’s foot in the birth canal. We were out of time.”

When she arrived at Cooma Hospital - a small rural facility with no NICU and limited emergency resources - she was asked if she could walk up the steps.

“I was having to stop mid-contraction to climb the stairs. I remember thinking, ‘This can’t be right.’”

Inside, familiar faces greeted her. One midwife who also did home visits asked gently, “How are you, Erin?” and she broke. “I said, ‘Not good. It’s too early.’ I just started crying.”

The doctor checked her and calmly said, “You’re 7cm. Baby is transverse - one foot is down in the birth canal.”

“I asked, ‘Are we having the baby now?’ and she just nodded. It was too late for transfer. There was no time to get to Canberra. They started prepping for an emergency c-section.”

Scott still hadn’t arrived.

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“I was never supposed to feel another contraction in my life. Now I was in full-blown labour - with no pain relief.”

Erin had gone into her second pregnancy expecting a planned c-section. The emergency caesarean she had with Dottie had left her traumatised - and she'd sworn never to do it again. But now, strapped to a hospital bed and told it was too late for an epidural, she had no choice.

“I was in full panic. The pain was intense but it wasn’t just physical - it was emotional. I was terrified of what would happen to the baby. I was scared I wouldn’t see my daughter for weeks. I was alone, and I was out of control.”

She began hyperventilating. “I remember yelling, ‘I can’t feel my hands!’ The room was going black. I was squeezing someone’s hand - they had to peel me off and pass me to someone else.”

Scott arrived just in time to be with her in theatre. She lay on her side - the only position she could manage with bulging waters - as doctors attempted the spinal. The first try failed. “It felt like a hot knife in my spine. But when they got it, there was instant relief. I could finally breathe again.”

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12 hours post-birth and Erin was on a 2 hour car ride to Canberra PLUS Ronald McDonald house with 2.2yo Dottie. Image: Supplied.

“He didn’t cry. He was rushed away. I didn’t get to hold him for four days.”

Baby Helix George Fox Felton was born at 4:36pm, weighing just 2.49kg. He let out a tiny, quiet cry - and was immediately taken away.

“It was chaos in the room. Beeping monitors, bright lights, three doctors, midwives everywhere. My body was shaking from the drugs, and tears were just rolling down my cheeks.”

Scott, unsure whether to stay with Erin or follow their son, ended up lying on the floor of the theatre, white as a sheet. “I was giggling through the trauma - or maybe just at the absurdity of Scott about to pass out,” Erin smiles.

Helix wasn’t breathing well on his own. He was placed in a humidicrib while midwives manually breathed for him. For four to five hours, Erin sat beside him, watching, waiting.

“He was so small. So hairy. His little chest was working so hard, making these awful little grunts. I knew what respiratory distress looked like - and he had it.”

Cooma didn’t have the resources for Helix, so he was transferred to Canberra’s NICU. But Erin, having just undergone major abdominal surgery, couldn’t go with him - and there was no bed for her at the same hospital.

“They wheeled me out of recovery and parked me next to him for as long as they could. It was one of the hardest moments of my life.”

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Hooked up to machines but full of fight - baby Helix’s first days in NICU. Image: Supplied.

“He’s too sick to hold.”

When Erin and Scott were finally allowed to see Helix again, they were met with a blunt statement from a nurse: “He’s too sick to hold.”

“That was all he said. No explanation, no compassion. And reading Helix’s discharge later, I learned they suspected he had sepsis. That should’ve been explained to us.”

For four days, Erin could only look at her baby through glass.

When a different nurse found out she hadn’t held him yet, he was shocked. “He just said, ‘Let’s do that now.’”

“It was confronting - the cords, the blue light, the machines - but he was finally in my arms. I felt like I could breathe again.”

The moment she waited days for - Erin’s first cuddle with Helix in NICU. Image: Supplied.

Ronald McDonald House: a lifeline

Erin and her family were offered a room at Ronald McDonald House in Canberra. At first, she felt she didn’t deserve the support.

“I had no idea what the organisation really did. But the staff were amazing. There were hot meals cooked by volunteers, breast pumps in every room, toys for Dottie - everything we needed to feel cared for.”

But then came a COVID scare. Helix was placed in isolation in NICU, and Erin was told she needed to return to Cooma to isolate until a negative result came back.

“They were so kind - they let us keep our room even though I had to leave. But being confined to a room with no access to food, separated from my baby, it was horrible. I felt useless.”

All she could do was pump - and pump she did. She eventually donated over 20L of milk to two NICU mums in Canberra.

After eight days, she was finally cleared to return to the NICU - where Helix remained for a total of three weeks.

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All Erin could do was pump - and she gave every drop. Erin donated over 20L of milk to other NICU mums. Image: Supplied.

“Coming home wasn’t a celebration. It was collapse.”

When Helix finally came home - strong enough to feed without tubes - Erin felt nothing but exhaustion. “I was in fight-or-flight for weeks. When the adrenaline wore off, I broke.”

She developed severe anxiety and PTSD. Panic attacks. Flashbacks. Dottie, still just two, clung to her, afraid to let her go.

“I couldn’t even walk down the street without someone commenting on how tiny Helix was. That alone was a trigger.”

Erin sought therapy through the Gidget Foundation and saw a psychologist for over a year.

“I have very little memory of Helix’s first eight months. I found it hard to bond with him. I thought he smelled weird and looked strange. That breaks my heart.”

The early days were tough, but this is what resilience looks like. Image: Supplied.

“Helix picked his own name.”

Now three, Helix is thriving - strong, happy, and cheeky. His name came to Erin in a dream.

“I sat bolt upright one night and said it out loud. It just felt right. A nurse in NICU told me it was a strong name. And that’s exactly who he is.”

As for Erin, she still feels the trauma in her body. Her joints ache around his birthday. Her surgery scars sting. But she knows she’s come through something most people can’t imagine.

“I wish I could go back and tell myself: You’re strong. Your baby is strong. And this will become part of your story - not the end of it.”

Originally published as “I can’t feel my hands!”: Erin’s panic spiralled as her baby arrived too soon