What do you mean HELLP?

Posted On Friday, February 22, 2013  by Sarah

The majority of my pregnancy was wonderful.  I had kept up with my workouts, ate healthy, felt great!  I had no reason to think that this pregnancy would be any different with my first.  All my tests were coming back normal, I was gaining the right amount of weight and the baby seemed to be moving all over the place.  At 33 weeks pregnant I began to have some abdominal pain that I thought was due to the baby's positioning, or possibly gallbladder.  I began having the pain more often and mostly through the night.  I let it go on for about a week until I called my doctor.  By this time I was 34 weeks and only seeing my doctor every two weeks.  The office told me to come on in, they took my blood pressure, did a urine test, all the normal things for an prenatal appointment.  My blood pressure was slightly elevated, but not severe.  I told my doctor what was going on and they set me up an appointment to have an ultrasound on my gallbladder but as a precaution he sent me to the hospital for blood work to rule anything out.  I get a call a few hours later to go immediately to the hospital.  I had HELLP Syndrome.  I was admitted at 3:30pm, my son Luke was delivered at 6:23pm that very day.  I had a platelet transfusion, two blood transfusions, 24 hours of magnesium.

My condition had remained undetected.  I had no prior symptoms, and everything happened so fast.  Had my doctor not ordered that test, my son and I may not be here today.  Luke spent 2 and a half weeks in the NICU.  He had fetal growth restriction, but other than that did very well!  He is now almost 4 months old. 

I am thankful to the doctors and staff that cared for me.  I had no prior knowledge of HELLP syndrome, but hope I can educate others through my experience!