This is probably so similar to everyone else on here but I wanted to share my story too. In february of 2004 I found out I was pregnant but started to bleed quite a bit and my gp said I had a miscarriage. A couple of days later I became extremely sick and was rushed to hospital by ambulance. It turned out I had an ectopic pregnancy and my fallopian tube had ruptured causing the bleeding. Before going to surgery I really thought I was going to die as I couldn't breathe.
Well needless to say I survived thankfully and became pregnant around christmas of 2005. The start of the pregnancy went well with no sickness or complications. I have a severely curved spine so it was planned for an extremely experienced anaesthetist to attempt an epidural when the time came. At around 27 weeks I had a consultant appointment and was disappointed not to see the consultant who had been taking care of me up to that point. I had my bp checked by a nurse who thought it was high, and told me that the consultant would check it again and that there was a trace of protein in my urine. The consultant I saw wasn't bothered and sent me home. (I got the feeling she thought I was a 1st time mum over reacting)
A few days later I had a checkup with my gp, who sent me straight to hospital and said "take an overnight bag, you will be going for some rest".
When I got there, I was immediately put on a monitor and had bp checked, urine checked. Then I was told I couldn't move from the bed and given a steroid injection "just in case". Finally a consultant (the nice one) came and said I had severe pre-eclampsia with +4 protein in my urine, an extremely high BP, and was lucky I hadn't had a stroke yet. My baby's heart rate kept dropping and I was given another injection. It was then decided that she had to be born. I was devastated, at 27+4 weeks I had no clue as to how she would survive. We were taken to theatre for a c-section and couldn't get the epidural to be effective with my back problem so I was put under a general anaesthetic. When I woke up I was in the postnatal ward with all the mums and babies and it broke my heart. I was given 2 photo's of my daughter but all I could see was tubes and wires. I was told she weighed 1lb 13oz and was in a critical condition. I didn't get to see her for nearly 2 days as I was still sick. I didn't even feel like she was mine. After several days I was moved to a private room where I could start to recover a little better. After some time I discharged myself knowing my BP would go down if I was out of there, and I could sit with my daughter when I wanted. She did pull through and after a rollercoaster 11 weeks she came home weighing 4lb 8oz.
Since then I had become pregnant again (unplanned) and suffered a missed miscarriage. That was in January this year and now in my heart I know I want to have another child but am so scared of history repeating itself. I don't know how to prepare for it or what to ask for when I see my gp.
Thanks for reading this.
Claire