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Hi my name is Tammy, I'm 25 yrs old and live in NS, Canada. My |
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Hi my name is Tammy, I'm 25 yrs old and live in NS, Canada. My husband Trevor & I were married July 16, 2005. We didn't know it at the time but we were already a couple of weeks pregnant. I had always said I wanted to get pregnant on my honeymoon-well we found out while we were on our honeymoon so that was close enough. I have a chronic kidney disease called Iga Nephropathy. I had been in to see my nephrologist months before we were married to make sure everything was okay to become pregnant. Because of my kidney disease I have high BP & protein in my urine. At my doctors visits my BP was averaging 140/90 and he kept saying that was fine for me to get pregnant-that's problem #1 I believe, because so far every story and every thing I read about preeclampsia it starts off at 140/90, I started my pregnancy at that number. The first few months went by smoothly, so I thought, I went to see my nephrologist & family doctor once a month. I have a BP machine at home to monitor it regularly and my BP was going up but I didn't understand the numbers like I do now. It would go to 150/100 and back to 140s/90s. I remember specifically asking my dr's if having high BP would affect my baby or just myself and they did tell me only me! Not so true, is it?! I ate properly, gained 3 pounds in my first 3 months then 2lbs a month after that. Everything crashed Nov. 4, 2005. When I checked my BP it was 198/123. My Dad took me to our community hospital(Digby General) where the on call doctor told me to take an extra one of my BP pills and go home. The nurse made me stay an extra hour cause she knew how high my BP was but after the hour, even though my BP never dropped, he still sent me home. The next day my BP was up to 203/122 so my husband took me to a hospital 45 minutes away(Yarmouth Regional). They took me to Emergency & started giving me meds through the IV to lower my BP. Everything remained the same for the next 5 days, uncontrolled BP. No one ever mentioned PE. They kept blaming it on my kidneys. Finally they sent me 3 hours away to Halifax (IWK) where I met so many different doctors that actually seemed to know what they were doing & wanted to help. Here is the first we ever heard of PE. The doctors were so worried they had to send me to the ICU in the hospital next door because my BP wouldn't go down. Again things remained the same for the next 4 days. Saturday Nov. 12 my Dr. did an ultrasound and discovered our baby was 20 days behind in growth. I was only 21 weeks along. Later after having had tons of blood tests done every 4 hours they discovered I was started to show signs of liver & kidney damage so they said they'd have to take the baby out. They put me on magnesium sulphate, put in a catheter and started to induce labor with some type of pill they put inside you at 8pm. Our baby girl, Ava Marie Sabine was born the next day at 3:27pm. She weighed 8oz. My husband, my parents & his parents were all there with me and we got to hold her and take photos. I have never felt such pain in my life. And I don't mean the physical part of it, I mean the emotional part. I'd put up with the physical part a million times if I could have my baby back. I've read so many stories and cried each time for those of you who've lost someone because of PE and I hate to say it, but Dr's ignorancecaused most of the losses. My first ultrasound was actually scheduled for 3 days after my baby died because the Dr was on vacation! We are now trying to become pregnant again but I am so scared. My BP is being controlled by Labetalol & Norvasc. I don't think I can handle losing another baby but I don't think I can handle not trying again one last time. I'm sorry this is so long but it's hard to get it any shorter than that. I wish none of us would ever have to write a story like this. If anyone wants to talk please email me I'd love to talk to someone who actually knows how I feel. Thanks for listening |
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