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My story with preeclampsia is very long, so I will try to keep it as |
| My story with preeclampsia is very long, so I will try to keep it as short as possible. Even though, I had preeclampsia 12 years ago, the pain of it all will be forever fresh in my mind. When I was 21 years old, my husband and I became pregnant with out first pregnancy. But my pregnancy was troubled right from the start. I began to get sick to my stomach at a week after conception, thinking I had the stomach flu. I soon found out I was pregnant, and thought that my morning sickness was normal. By the time I was 5 weeks pregnant I was already being hospitalized for dehydration, throwing up non stop 24 hours a day. By 7 weeks they did an ultrasound and found out I was carrying twins. I was in and out of the hospital at least once a week. I continued to worsen, and literally held nothing down, and weight was falling off me. I was only 117 pounds when I got pregnant. By the time I was 10 weeks pregnant, my father flew me home, across the country, so my mom could quit her job and take care of me round the clock. I was too weak to walk or stand up. I had to crawl to the bathroom the once I day I would even go. By the time I was 12 weeks pregnant, I had lost 35 pounds. I now looked like a skeleton with a small pouch! I then developed blood clots. Which looking back now, I am angry no one treated! But luckily they went away safely on their own. I dont know how many times I was in the hospital. It is all really a big blur. I had what is called hyperemisis. Non stop throwing up. I was totally bedridden, and didnt want to ever wake up because it meant I would just throw up. But my babies seemed to be doing great through it all! Finally, at 17 weeks, and during a 2 week hospital stay, the doctors didnt know what to do with me. They flat out told me they had never seen a case like me, and I was the best hospital in our state! They could no longer get an IV in me in any part of my body! They tried everwhere! So they decided to put in a hickman tube. To feed me TPN through a central line in my chest. I was now 86 pound, 4 months pregnant with twins. As soon as they got the hickman tube in, and began feeding me TPN through it, I slowly began to improve. I got to go home and have a health care nurse come daily. I was fed by the machine for 12 hours each night. I was kind of beginning to feel somewhat human again. Though, I still threw up countless times a day. At about 19 weeks, I began to develop migrane headaches for the first time in my life. With the lightening bolts across my eyes. My left leg began to swell horribley. At 21 weeks, at one of my routine 3 times a week dr. check ups, they noticed high blood pressure. I felt fine. They made me stay in the hospital, again, to see if my blood pressure would come down. It did, so they let me go home. By now, though I was having pain in my abdomen, and my leg continued to stay 3 times its size swollen. The migranes also continued. But I actually felt better than I had the whole pregancy, and didnt tell the doctors of my pain in my abdomen. I began to hold down food, and really thought the worst of it was over, and that swelling was normal. Wrong. Finally at 27 weeks pregnant, and feeling great, I went in for my usualy appt, and the doctor had a fit because my blood pressure was sky high. He told me he was admitting me to labor and delivery immediately. I told him, no, (lol), that I felt fine and I had had enough of hospital stays! He then hooked me up to some big blood pressue machine that takes your blood pressure every minute and told me that if my blood pressure continued to raise that he had to legally override my refusal of treatment, and admit me. Well, you can guess, I was admitted immediately. I was immediately put on blood pressure meds, and had the doctors come tell me what would happen to my babies born 3 months early. I was in disbelief as I had thought finally I was well. One second I am what I think is fine, the next I am being told my babies will come early. The next 6 days are rather a blur to me. I was on heavy meds for everything, and I began to deteriorate rapidly. One of my twins was not doing well either. Her heart rate didnt want to come up after my contractions, which I was having all the time. I am not even sure of all that was wrong with me with the preeclampsia. They did their best to keep the blood pressure under control, but even that began not to work. I was on oxygen 24 hours a day. I could not eat. I threw up non stop. I remember laying in bed thinking, I have a tube in every opening of my body, and where there was not an opening, they made one! I began to swell all over my body. I was just a puff ball of fluid. My kidneys began not working well, and on the 5th day, my blood count was so low, that I had to have 2 blood transfusions or they said I would die when I had the girls. On the 6th day, I woke in the morning and even though I was on oxygen, I felt as though I couldnt breathe. I told the nurse that it felt like I had been swimming all day and couldnt get enough air in. Within minutes she was back telling me she had to call all my family members because they were taking my babies at 28 weeks, 3 months early, that day. I had pulminary edema, and was literally drowning in my own lungs. They scheduled an emergency c-section. The next 10 hours, until they took them are also a blur to me. More tubes, more machines, a nurse not leaving my side, and I began dialating on my own and going into labor. My family members coming in one at a time to see me, saying how I was dying. But you know, I was never afraid for myself or my babies, and knew I wasnt dying. At 7 at night, they did the c-section. I was not put to sleep because my blood pressure was too high. But I remember them telling me to stay awake while they were taking the babies, and I couldnt. I was so tired form 7 months of horror, and finally knowing it was over, I went to sleep. I did not get to see my daughters be born, though my husband was in there and did. My girls were born at 1 lb 8 oz, (my small sick one, with apgars of 1), and 2 lbs 10 oz. They were immediately put on ventilators. I went to ICU for next 2 days.I slept through that also. I weighed 114 pounds the day after I gave birth! I slept through that also. When I woke 2 days later, they were moving me to a recovery room. My blood pressure was still out of control, and I was still throwing up. But, after a week, I got to go home. Of course, they protested that I was not well enough, but I wanted to go home. It was over now. I saw my girls for the first time when they were 4 days old. My little one, Nicole, they didnt know if she would live. She was very sick. But, somewhere in me, I knew she would be ok. She was hospitalized for 4 months. She was born in June, due in September, and came home in October. My other big baby was home in August. Nicole spent 2 months on the ventilator and another 2 months on oxygen. Now, 12 years later, they are normal, happy girls! You would never know what the 3 of us went through together. Nicole is ADHD from prematurity, and some learning disablities in school. She is very tiny, she is only 50 pounds at 12. But 50 pounds of fire! My other twin is Amber, and she is 90 pounds, and no problems besides dyslexia like Nicole. I recovered quickly once I was home. I had no lasting physcial effects, but I am emotionally scarred forever. It has taken 12 years to come to terms with my pregnancy and near death. It is still fresh in my mind. But finally, I am ready to chance fate again, and my husband (different husband, with no children of his own) and I are planning a pregnancy for anytime now. I must admit I am terrified. I have seen the specialist at the hospital where I had my girls, he has looked over my records of my pregnancy, and says he promises me he will never let me get that sick again. He would take my baby early to prevent that happening again. I feel for anyone who has been through preeclampsia. It is a horrible state to be in. I am blessed that myself and my daughters lived. I would like to hope that it wont happen with this pregnancy, but my perintologist told me, to count on being ill again. I only hope it is caught sooner this time. Good luck to all women who will come down with preeclampsia. And I hope my story gave some sort of hope to women though, that a baby born early due to it, and grow up normal and healthy! |
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