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My storyPosted On Tuesday, December 28, 2010 by Alexandra |
Five days before my due date I started to feel sick and had a headache. I went to Walmart to check my blood pressure and it was 150/ 100. I called my ob and she advised me to go to labor and delivery. When I got there, my blood pressure was 146/ 100. They asked me to lay on my left side, so it came down to then 127/ 90. They did several labs including preeclampsia, and they were all negative. The nurse said that I made my blood pressure go up. I didn't agree with her of course, but I was fine and went home. On my last week of pregnancy, my feet were swelling so much that they would get numb if I was standing too long. I started to see stars and floaters. The top of my head would hurt so bad. My 40th week appointment was on Nov. 5th but my ob wasn't in, so a medical student was the one to see me. I was concerned because he was a student, but after talking to him I felt much better since he didn't think that I was making my BP go up. My BP was reading 155/100. He talked to the attending physician and again they sent me to L&D. They tested me for everything including preeclampsia and everything was negative. My BP was high, but I was feeling fine. The doc at LD said they were going to induce me. Me and my husband got excited since the doc said that the baby would be here by tomorrow. We didn't know that the induction would last 56 stressful hours! I was 1cm dilated when they started to induce me with a medication every 4 hours (I don't recall the name of the drug). They were also giving me BP medicine and saying "this is the last one I am giving you." Of course I was still making my BP go up. Then they got the result for the 24hr urine test and found protein in my urine. So they realized I wasn't making my BP go up. I was diagnosed with preeclampsia. They gave me the induction medicine several times, but I wouldn't dilate. It was very frustrating that I would walk, use the birthing ball, but was still 1cm only. I was in pain for 48 hours. I was begging for a C-section. I was under so much pain for soo long. On the morning of the 7th, they gave me pitocin. They gave me the epidural before active labor because my platelets could go down, and I could hemorrhage. I was so scared, but she did say that my platelets were high enough that this would probably not happen. They were being cautious. They also started me on magnesium sulfate through IV since it prevents seizures. I was on magnesium for 2 days. It was bad since I couldn't eat, get out of the bed and had an urine catheter. Mag makes a person feel miserable. Every 15 min my BP was checked and the machine would make a noise to alert the nurses. After 50 hours, I couldnt take the noise it would make after each reading anymore. We asked them to just turn off the machine. We knew it was high anyway. They couldn't. What a nightmare. With the pitocin, I was dilating much faster. At 11:21 pm on the 7th after 2hours of pushing and an episiotomy, I gave birth to my beautiful daughter. I was soo glad... After I was off mag and could get out the bed, I noticed that my feet had gotten even bigger, my left knee had doubled the size, and my hands and face were even more swollen. At 4am the nurse rushed in the room and put me back on the IV in case if I needed a blood transfusion. They did labs and she said that in her 29 years of experience she had never seen the labs come back much worse after the delivery of the baby since the only cure for preeclampsia is the delivery. I was asking God for mercy. I was so scared and this time I really made my BP go up from the 150/100 range to 177/110. I thought I was going to die. I didn't know what was happening. I was scared about the seizures, and now about having a blood transfusion. At night, my nose started to bleed. I was terrified and called the doc. He said since it was just the nose bleeding, it was probably caused by the dry air from the hospital since I was there for about a week.  After 24hrs my labs were looking better. The nurse told me I needed to rest, eat right, walk and relax and relax again so my BP would not get high because then I could have seizures. That was the worst part trying to make my BP go down and relax while I was worried that I could have seizures. The time at the hospital was the most stressful and scary experience of my life. When we went home, I was feeling sick and depressed. I got home 20 lbs lighter, and after 2 days i had lost 15 extra pounds.. My feet were skinny again.. Recovering from preeclampsia, taking care of a newborn, and trying to finish my last semester in college as a full time student was crazy. Especially because the light from the computer screen would cause me to have visual disturbances and then I would get stressed out, but then I couldn't stress out because my BP would go up. My postpartum period was very hard. I had 2 UTIs due to the use of urine catheter, a viral infection, and all my stitches from the episiotomy became undone and infected. My BP was normal after 3 weeks and visual disturbances after 5 weeks. I am just glad that it is all over now. Both me and my baby are healthy, and I graduated from college. Thank God!
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