Happy HELLP story

[caitlinsdad]

Hi folks

Sofie, my wife had our second little gubbit a couple of weeks ago. Emergency caesarean in response to rapid-onset HELLP at 36 weeks. Both are fine now (if, like me, your version of fine excludes the recovery-from-major-abdominal-survey bit that goes with the emergency caesarean).

And wow – rapid onset – Sofie throws up one morning, baby's delivered before the day's through.

Anyway, rather than take up bandwidth here, I blogged a bit about it – see http://aleakage.blogspot.com/2007/07/hellp-or-when-pregnancy-goes-wrong-but.html


(The first entry when you load the blog's home page is just one small bit of what happened with or first child, when the professionals could have done a teensy bit better. Sofie's version of that is here: http://preeclampsia.org/SeeStory.aspx?id=8131617).

It's good having a moderately sane wife at this point. And she gets to enjoy having a small bub, without the – I wonder when my liver's coming on line again, or when will my blood pressure drop – questions (about a year, and a couple of months, for the curious).

Sleep? Did someone mention sleep?

[blythe]

D*mn. It's been a while since a story here has made me cry. Congratulations on a much better birth this time around! Thanks for sharing. Welcome to your new son!

[caryn]

Congratulations! Yes, a good team makes all the difference.

[fiona]

Peter,

I read the blogs on both births and am very relieved to hear things went right this time. Congratulations on a beautiful baby boy - and having the energy left to enjoy him.

[caitlinsdad]

Thanks Fiona

The glass-half-full version of the first birth is - how many hubbies get to say they probably saved their wife's life in the labour ward? (why do I say this- if Sofie had fallen & hit her head, all bets were off - her systolic had maxed out at 201 a little earlier [while on labetalol 400mg/24hr],her platelet count had collapsed plus there was the small issue of liver & kidneys not functioning.)

Still, we both preferred the second time round.

Luckily, the kids look like her.

[caitlinsdad]

Thanks for the interest in our story, folks. To give a sense of how Sofie ended up as she did the first time around, I've dropped (an edited version of) the letter I wrote to the hospital's high-risk pregnancy specialist into my blog, at http://aleakage.blogspot.com/2007/07/list-of-mistakes.html

It's a little long and dry, but some might find it intriguing. Our aim was to help them improve their processes. It didn't seem to work.

I've also included a list of pre-eclampsia oriented posts in my blog's sidebar, in case it helps.

Peter

PS I forgot to add last time - thanks Blythe, the aim of one of those pieces was to stir emotions.

[for faith]

Wow, just read this. Great you are using your experiences to help get the knowledge out about this disease! Great job! So glad all ended ok, hard road to get there though. Hope all is continuing well! Take care,