March 22, 2024 By Aubrey Pritchard
I received multiple missed calls from the hospital, when I listened to the voicemail it was an urgent message for me to go to the hospital immediately as they had noticed my baby had too much Amniotic Fluid on the ultrasound I received earlier in the day. My heart sunk as I grabbed my phone charger, water bottle, and a piece of cheese (lol … hey, a girls gotta eat), and headed to the hospital. They set me up for an NST and confirmed the baby was okay, but me on the other hand had high blood pressure. After hours of monitoring, it was determined I was not going to leave the hospital that night and we needed to induce labor ASAP. I begged the doctors to let me leave and tried convincing them my high BP was due to stress at work — they explained we needed to have the baby NOW to prevent me from getting preeclampsia again (I had it with my first born as well). Fast forward 16 hours of labor, and an emergency c-section, and we had our healthy baby boy. We did it! We stayed off the mag-drip and avoided preeclampsia … or so we thought. After a few days of being home from the hospital, we were going to take the baby and our toddler to the park … fully dressed and ready to go, we received a package from my Mother-in-love, it was a blood pressure cuff. Although I felt completely fine, I told my husband I wanted to use it quick, he was supportive but admittedly gave me the look of “really RIGHT now, while we’re headed out the door?” (ladies, you know the face, lol). Thank God I did, my BP was at a dangerously high level. Since I felt fine, I was convinced there was just something wrong with my new cuff, although to give me peace of mind I called the doctor to see if they could get me in quick for a blood pressure check. Turns out my cuff was correct, they told me to IMMEDIATELY go to the hospital where I was admitted very quickly and placed on blood pressure meds, 15 minutes checks, and the 24 hour magnesium drip to prevent having a seizure. The nurses let me know if I hadn’t come in when I did things could have gotten really ugly fast. I spent 3 days in the hospital, I knew I was where I needed to be, but it was gut wrenching to be in the hospital alone and away from my brand new baby, toddler, and husband. They say delivery is the “cure” for preeclampsia, but that was not my case — I wish every birthing parent was released from the hospital with a blood pressure cuff, bouquet of flowers, and info on postpartum preeclampsia … if my Mother-in-love wouldn’t have sent me that BP cuff, who knows what could have happened at the park that day?
I had a completely healthy pregnancy up until 38 weeks. The previous week I got my blood levels tested and the urine test done, but everythin...
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