After 2 years of trying I found out I was pregnant in November 05. At my booking the mw commented that I looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights and I replied by saying that I was not going to enjoy pregnancy! My booking bp was 130/89 which I told the mw was quite high for me (always 120/70) but she said it was fine due to the fact that I am very overweight.
I was right, I did have a dreadful pregnancy with severe nausea throughout causing me to loose over 2 stone. I had a stomach bug at 18 weeks that put me in hospital for 48hrs and while I was there my high bp was commented on but no action was taken. My anomaly scan was at 23 weeks and again my bp was questioned and I was told that the cons would speak to my gp about keeping an eye on me. Nothing came of this.
At 25 weeks I caught a flu type virus and spent most of the week in bed. The next week I started to get what I thought was severe heartburn and chest pains. I went to my gp three times to be given increasing doses of codeine for the pain until I was on 75mg a time with no effect. At this point I decided enough was enough and at 6am went to a&e fully expecting to be sent home to ride it out but hoping to at least have the baby monitored for a short while to reasure me everything was ok. How wrong was I! They immediately put me on a heart monitor and drained me of most of my blood before sending me up to the ward to be hooked up to iv antibiotics for a chest infection. I was told the next day that my platelets were a little low and I may have pre-eclampsia so would be kept under observation for a couple of days. I have since found out that my platelets were down to 67 and they had already diagnosed HELLP but or some reason did not see fit to tell me.
By Wednesday night I was feeling much better and was told I may be allowed home the next day! On Thursday I started to feel sick and get chestpain again which this time I put down to the antibiotics as I react quite badly to them. The first bombshell was dropped at 6pm when I was informed they were transfering me to another hospital 'just as a precausion' as there were no cots available in nicu. Again I later found out that my platelets were dropping rapidly down to 40 and I was being transfered for delivery. The hospital I was transfered to was under the same impression as me and were very shocked when their initial bloods came back at 30! By 10.30 I was having catheters, canulas and transfussions with a minimum of 10 people in the room at any one time. I was told I may well need a full hysterectomy due to uncontrolable bleeding and I was unable to have any sedatives due to my chest infection.
Isaac was born at 1.18am on Friday 28th April weighing 860g (1lb 14oz). There were 26 people in theatre to witness his birth including an obs cons, 2 anasthetic cons, 1 general med cons, 1 paed cons and 4 regs from various departments! They all did the most wonderful job to save both myself and my very little miracle. I spent 3 days in intensive care, part of that time on o2. I then spent a further 14 days on the ward waiting for my liver function to improve to a safe level to go home. It was during this time I found out what HELLP syndrome is and how ill I really was.
Isaac is now a healthy, happy little 2 year old with very few issues to show for his early start. I have been to see an APEC consultant and now have a plan for any future pregnancy and just need to pluck up the courage to try again.There is also a big message on my notes requesting full disclosure of all results and I will be asking to read my notes on a daily basis. No more surprises for me thank you very much!
Home 
