Hi,
I'm Nicki, from Gloucestershire, and I had HELLP syndrome with my first baby in October 2005. He was born at 33 weeks, and fortunately, because I'd already been admitted for a 24 hour protein collection 4 days before, I'd already had steroid injections to develop his lungs.
I was admitted on a Saturday morning with high blood pressure, having had several visits to Day Assessment over the previous 5 weeks for high blood pressure. My protein levels were within an acceptable range (my BP was spiking at 160/90 so I was discharged on the Monday and told to come back for day assessment in a couple of days.
A few hours after I got home I started with pain in my upper abdomen, and was readmitted to hospital at midnight on the Monday night. They were at a loss as to what was causing the pain, as my platelets were normal just prior to being discharged, and I had the added complication of having had a breast reconstruction with a mesh panel from my sternum to just above my pubic bone, which they thought may be causing the pain, as it doesn't stretch.
I saw the consultant on the Tuesday morning and he said that I could go home, then he came back an hour later with my latest blood results – my platelets had dropped dramatically overnight to 86 I think – I wasn't really in a fit state to take things in by that point.
I had another blood test to check the results, and that confirmed HELLP (I don't know what my platelet count was this time). My consultant then checked with the Special Care unit to make sure that they had a bed for my baby, and sent the Paediatrician to talk to us about the risks of having an early baby.
Jonathan was delivered by emergency c-section at 7.10pm – they did let me have a spinal, and weighed in at 4lb 10oz. He breathed on his own from the start, but did have to have a little extra oxygen in his incubator for the first few hours.
After Jon was born, my BP started going really haywire – it went up as high as 205/110, and I was kept on high dependency for almost 24 hours, having IV medication to bring my BP down. I didn’t see Jon until the following afternoon.
I stayed in the hospital for 10 days, and Jon stayed in the special care unit for 3 weeks, mainly to learn how to feed.
Jonathan is wonderful – he’s two and a half now and so full of fun, and he doesn’t appear to have any lasting effects from having been born a little early, although he was a little late with speaking - but has since caught up and we can't shut him up
His latest obsession is with racing cars, and every other sentence is 'Mummy, I love racing cars'!
I did have lots of blood tests done for various clotting and auto-immune disorders, all of which were negative so it appears that I don’t have an underlying reason for having developed HELLP – I guess I was just unlucky.
We have decided against having another child, although we've been told that the risks of recurrence would only be about 20%, there are other factors in play that I'm not entirely ready to share yet - hopefully I will feel able to one day.
Thanks for listening
Nicki