Nearly 6 months ago – in mid-January – I gave birth via a planned c-section to Connor, a beautiful, healthy baby boy.
The road to meeting him was interesting and a bit scary at times, but what happened after was hell on Earth.
My husband and I were lucky in that we didn’t have to “try” to get pregnant. We were in the “if it happens it happens” phase of things and poof, a week before my 30th birthday I found out I was pregnant. My pregnancy was fairly unremarkable early on. I didn’t get morning sickness, I didn’t have mood swings (that I know of – might wanna check with the husband for verification, haha). I didn’t gain much weight or swell up – it was easy and I felt lucky. The most annoying thing was that during my 2nd trimester I had an “irritable uterus” and so I had a lot of false contractions that would leave my muscles aching.
Around 35 weeks I thought my water broke. I went to the hospital as instructed by my OB and it turns out it hadn’t, but I WAS having contractions every 2 minutes (that I couldn’t feel!). I wasn’t progressing quickly enough for them to keep me, so eventually they gave me a steroid shot meant to help the baby’s lungs develop quicker if he was born early and sent me home, telling me to eat something and pack a bag because they all thought I would be back that night. The said if I didn’t go into true labor that night to go to my doctor in the morning to get a check of my progress.
And that is when all hell broke loose.
I should note that the evening before (JANUARY 7, when I was given the steroid shot), my blood pressure was 122/74.
The next morning (JANUARY 8) I arrived at my doctors office and told them that I was supposed to get a progress check. When they checked things out I still hadn’t progressed, but my blood pressure was 160/88, which is very high and a warning sign of preeclampsia. They had me lie down for a few minutes and when they checked it again it was down to 130/80 which is a bit high, but not worrisome. Apparently the threshold for preeclampsia is two readings of 140/90 at least 4 hours apart. I was scheduled to return to the hospital later that evening to get a second dose of the steroid shot, and the doctor told me to make sure they rechecked my blood pressure.
That evening (still JANUARY 8) at the hospital I declined the second dose of the steroid – I was having an annoying reaction to it (very jittery, face hot and red as if I’d gotten a bad sunburn, fast pulse – all fairly standard steroid reactions, but I didn’t like it). They said that because I was 36 weeks that day that I didn’t need the second dose, as by that point it wouldn’t help much anyway (baby’s lungs are generally pretty well developed by 36 weeks) and most of the benefit comes from the first dose anyway. At that point, my blood pressure was 130/86, which is just on the border of being too high (and my pulse rate was 107, from the steroid injection). I was advised to head back to my doctor’s office in the morning for them to keep an eye on my blood pressure.
The following morning (JANUARY 9) I headed into my doctor’s office for them to check my blood pressure. The nurse had some difficulty taking it because she couldn’t find the appropriate sized cuff and then the machine (she didn’t do it manually, for some reason) kept inflating and inflating but wouldn’t release (my hand practically turned purple!). Eventually she declared my blood pressure was 120/90 – not horrible, but the bottom number had hit 90 which is an indicator of preeclampsia. I left with instructions to purchase some Magnesium supplements at CVS. On my way home my phone rang, and it was the doctor’s office – they also wanted me on bed rest until I went into labor or until my scheduled c-section date, whichever came first (and at this point they were all still thinking I would be going into labor any minute). They also said that if I got a headache that wouldn’t go away, or any pain in my upper right abdomen I should head to the hospital.
I spent the rest of that day and most of the following day at home, but I wasn’t doing an awesome job of relaxing. I was still trying to work (ahhh, the “benefits” of being your own boss and working from home) and work at a faster pace so I could wrap things up in case I went into pre-term labor. The next evening (JANUARY 10) however, I realized that I had a slight headache that wouldn’t quit. This is probably a good place to note that I almost ALWAYS have a headache. And this wasn’t a very bad headache – just a “oh, my head kinda hurts a little” headache. But since the doctor told me to go to the hospital if I had a headache that wouldn’t quit, I went.
Finally on January 10 – at 36 weeks – I was diagnosed with mild preeclampsia, admitted to the hospital as my blood pressure was officially 140/90, I had a bit of protein in my urine, and of course the headache. I would be there until I had the baby which at the latest would be 1 week later and at the earliest could be later that night or anytime they felt my blood pressure was getting too high or other symptoms cropped up/got worse. At the time I was diagnosed my husband was at a business dinner in Boston. It was a few hours until he could get on the train, get home, grab our hospital bags (which we had already packed) and get to me.
For a week I sat in the hospital (with my loving, perfect husband by my side) terrified that my body was failing and killing both me and my baby, even though my doctors and nurses were constantly reassuring me that I was actually completely fine and just being monitored. I wasn’t actually even really being monitored – I wasn’t hooked up to anything. Every few hours someone would come in, take my blood pressure, put a monitor on my belly to check the baby’s heart rate, tell me all was good, and leave. As uneventful as that week was, I spent a lot of time being nervous and crying. It’s hard to NOT be nervous when you’re in the hospital for monitoring. Every time someone would tell me I was fine, I would tearfully tell them that I obviously wasn’t fine, because if I was I would be at home.
On January 17, the day of my c-section (I had been planning to have one regardless), the nurses came in to get me and wheeled me into the OR. Within an hour of the operation starting I was in recovery with my husband, who had been by my side the entire time, and my son. It was surreal. And amazing. And holy crap, I had a baby!
My doctor had warned me that it’s “totally normal” to see a spike in blood pressure a day or two after delivery, and after over a week of having blood pressure readings that were varying between completely normal and slightly high (in the hospital I even had some readings that were “perfect” – in the 110s/70s), the night before I was supposed to be discharged from the hospital, my blood pressure spiked to 160/88. Within minutes I had a room full of doctors and nurses. My husband had been down the hall grabbing a snack from the vending machine and heard them call a “rapid response” to our room. He thought it was because I had demanded they bring the baby to me quickly, since we had sent him to the nursery. But what he really heard was the call for every available medical practitioner to squeeze into the tiniest hospital room ever. I was immediately told to lie down while they came in with a dose of a blood pressure medication (procardia) that is designed to act quickly. Meanwhile, nurses were putting seizure pads on my bed (big blue pads that were there so that if I had a seizure I wouldn’t injure myself), while another nurse set up an IV of Magnesium Sulfate to prevent seizures. A few minutes after taking the medication my blood pressure dropped… low. And my pulse went sky high – to 160bpm (probably because I was anxious from taking the medication, the high reading, and the flurry of activity). A few minutes later another team of people came in, this time with an EKG machine check my heart function and some Ativan to try to slow it down. The EKG came back completely normal. The Ativan was much appreciated, and my heart rate returned to normal once I laid down and started taking some deep breaths.
All the while I laid on the bed, staring at the ceiling trying not to freak out. Chuck said that even though I looked absolutely terrified (and he couldn’t get near me because the doctors and nurses had things to do) he was surprised at how calm I seemed. It wasn’t because I was calm, though – it was because I was absolutely terrified to move thinking that at any minute I might have a seizure, stroke, or heart attack. I figured if I stayed really, really still I wouldn’t make anything worse than it already was – so I just laid there, staring at the ceiling and hoping I didn’t die.
As my blood pressure stabilized and my heart rate returned to normal I was hooked up to the magnesium and put on an additional 24 hours of bed rest. Apparently I am the first person my nurse had ever spoken with who didn’t hate the magnesium. I guess a lot of people have crappy reactions to it, but it just made me feel really warm and cozy, like I was about to take the best nap ever. Or maybe that was the Ativan – who knows.
On January 22 I was finally discharged from the hospital. I wasn’t prescribed any blood pressure medication, as my BP had returned to a fairly normal level. However, things went from bad to worse because at that point my anxiety decided to kick into high gear.
Being out of the hospital terrified me. As far as I was concerned, I had just survived a disease that could have killed me and my baby, had a completely traumatic experience with the rapid response, and now I was being thrown to the wolves to just hope things settled down. Uhm, nope! After being home for two days and doing nothing but crying and being terrified I made appointments with my psychiatrist and my therapist. I saw my psychiatrist first. While I was there she checked my blood pressure three times and each time it was all over the place, one time getting as high as 170/80 and one time being almost normal. She ordered me back to the hospital where my BP was still a bit high but starting to come down. They gave me a dose of a different blood pressure medication (they had classified the one given to me while in the hospital as a negative reaction and apparently unless it’s necessary to save my life I won’t be given it ever again) which instantly dropped my blood pressure to a nearly normal level. They wrote my a prescription of a low dose of it and sent me on my way. They also told me at that time that my high blood pressure might be a result of anxiety and not something more sinister.
A few days later I had to be seen by my primary care physician for follow-up from a car accident I had been in a couple days before Christmas. While I was there they couldn’t get a reading on my pulse – it was bouncing around from 60 to 100 to 80 to 120. Eventually they rolled in an EKG machine and did 2 EKGs, both of which came back fine. My doctor and I were concerned, however, so she wrote me a referral to a cardiologist and orders for a 48-hour holter monitor (which is essentially wearing an EKG machine for 48 hours straight). I spent another week bawling my eyes out and being terrified to even hold the baby, lest my heart give out and I drop him. When I finally saw the cardiologist he explained that it’s fairly common for postpartum women to have a bit of a wonky heart because their bodies are getting used to having less blood to pump around, but he also did an EKG. He said all of my EKGs had come back perfect (the one in the hospital, the 2 in my doctor’s office, and the one he had just done) and that my 48-hour holter monitor results were perfect as well. He also did a thorough exam and declared my heart “perfectly fine” and said that he didn’t expect to see me for another 50 years or so. Excellent!
Unfortunately, a few days after THAT I got a headache. The weirdest headache of my life – it felt like someone was stabbing me in the head. Again, I worried about my preeclampsia and high blood pressure and headed to my doctors office, where the doctor on call was concerned about a brain aneurysm or stroke. (Note: do NOT say those words to someone with severe anxiety…) She sent me for an MRI and an MRA – only one of which my insurance would cover, so my husband and I paid for the other out of pocket. Turns out, my brain is completely fine as well, woo! But that was yet another week spent being terrified that I would drop dead at any minute.
Last but not least, I’d been having some cramping in my leg that wouldn’t go away. Whenever someone has major surgery they’re at risk for blood clots, and being pregnant in and of itself is a risk for blood clots, so of course that was a concern. After 2 ultrasounds of my legs and 2 blood tests it was determined that there was no clot and I was probably experiencing a combination of sciatica and muscle spasms.
Throughout all of this I was still taking my blood pressure medication and going once per week to my OB’s office for blood pressure checks. Thankfully though my blood pressure issues seemed to resolve fairly quickly, with normal readings at every single doctors appointment, and by 4 weeks postpartum I was completely off the medication, with normal blood pressure. They did, however, have to check my blood pressure twice at each visit. Once at the beginning, where it was almost always on the high side, and then once at the end when I was more calm where it was always great.
Ultimately, I remained completely petrified for a couple more weeks until eventually my brain decided to believe the doctors who were all telling me I was fine (and probably when my pregnancy hormones decided to even themselves out).
However, I’m still nervous. I’m scared of getting pregnant again and developing preeclampsia, eclampsia, or HELLP. I’ve been told by my OB that all three of those scenarios are highly unlikely due to the fact that my preeclampsia onset was late in pregnancy, was mild, and she isn’t even entirely certain I had preeclampsia that had been severe enough to warrant the blood pressure medication since many of my high blood pressure readings correlated with times of high anxiety (like the ones in my psychiatrists office, where I was basically having a nervous breakdown). That said, preeclampsia is an unpredictable illness. There’s no way of knowing who will get it, when they’ll get it, or how severe it will be. The severity can range from mild cases like mine that are kind of just a nuisance, to ones that are so severe they cause maternal and fetal death, and everything in between. Preeclampsia can lead to eclampsia, meaning seizures, or HELLP syndrome which is essentially the liver and kidneys shutting down while the blood begins to lose platelets. And at this time, as much as it kills me to think that my son might be an only child (I had never envisioned only having 1 kid), I don’t know that I can go through 8 or 9 months of pregnancy being nervous about developing preeclampsia and waiting for it to set in (whether or not it actually does).
At the end of the day, however, my husband and I are the luckiest parents. We have a happy, healthy, smart, strong baby boy. He’ll be six months old next week and he’s just absolute perfection.