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Pre-eclampsia and me
As I write this, Rafferty – just turned five – is with me playing Lego; and we’re both – touch wood – in great health. So while pre-eclampsia was serious and felt awful at the time; we’re here! We’re fine. We’re lucky.
At the end of 2010, my first pregnancy was happening in textbook fashion. Tom and I had taken a couple of years to conceive and I was in a glow of excitement. We had done a hynobirthing course in preparation for a home birth; and with a few months until March
The slippery slope started – quite literally – on Boxing Day, when I slipped on ice and fractured my arm. For the next month I had a big bump and an arm in plaster. When the plaster came off 6 weeks before my due date, I thought: ”Thank goodness THAT’s all over – now I can get back to feeling normal!”
But, a few days later, a case-loading midwife came to my house, took one look at my swelling-cankles and told me about this
But, I’d just got that plaster off my arm, I did not want something else wrong with me. She told me to call her if I started to feel ’different.’ Nope, I thought, I’m absolutely FINE, and I carried on as usual. Except… soon I DID start to feel different. My face started swelling, and I could only wear flip-flops my feet were so big. My head started to ache, and I felt really, really, heavy. A week after
”I don’t feel right,” I said.
”Get to the hospital now,” she said.
”But, the Ocado man’s coming,” I said, ”and I’ve ordered scallops!”
At the hospital the midwife laughed when I said I was cooking scallops that night. She also laughed when I said I was having a home birth. ”You’re not going anywhere,” she said, as she plonked me in a bed on the labour ward.
My protein levels and blood pressure were high, and they were getting higher. I had to stay while they monitored me. They told
Now, this was before that episode in Downton Abbey. I had no clue about how bad it could be. I still didn’t feel like I needed to be there – despite the test results. I was set on my home birth. But, I stayed there one night. And then two. And then… nearly a week. I hardly slept (other people’s labours are noisy), I was monitored 24/7, and
Every day I pretended I wasn’t really ill. Yet, my blood-pressure and protein count kept getting higher, and then I started swelling beyond recognition. I looked like I was being inflated; like the Michelin man. My entire face and body puffed up so much that I could hardly see out my puffy eyes and I felt like Shallow Hal. A friend from NCT came into have her baby and didn’t recognise me.
I asked every day to go home but the midwives shook their heads. I’ll be FINE! I
Of course, Rafferty wasn’t ready to arrive. Things happened slowly before I was epiduraled to the eyeballs and spent 12 (very chilled) hours in a labour room, with Fleetwood Mac and Tom massaging my feet. But, when Rafferty’s heart-rate went funny they whizzed us into the operating theatre and whipped him out. He was 5lb and
That is when everything hit home.
Pre-birth I’d held it all together. But as soon as Rafferty arrived, my strength and reserve evaporated and I just wanted to pass out. I felt so, so relived, but also so, so weak. A midwife insisted I do skin-on-skin in the recovery room; but, shaking, I begged Tom to take him off me so I could sleep!
On the ward later, I was sure I’d now be allowed home – like all those mums who manage to pop a baby out and go home that day. But no; we my blood pressure was still too high. They needed
With the constant checks, the new baby, the sore, cesarean-stomach – I felt exhausted, dazed and confused. My milk came in slowly, and – like many new mums – I found feeding hard. I felt like a failure.
My swollen face and body went down considerably, but I was so puffy post-birth I remember feeling absolutely gutted, and strangely shameful, that I wouldn’t have perfect ’new mum and baby’ photos in the hospital. (Again, social media has a lot to
On top of that I wasn’t healing: I was loosing so much blood that after three days I was dangerously anaemic. They hooked me up for a blood transfusion on the same day everyone on my Facebook feed was sharing photos of London Fashion Week. Ha! I was at my lowest ebb. And the lowest low for me was when a ridiculously fit male doctor spent half an hour fishing about inside me to remove a massive blood-clot.
But finally, a week after giving birth, the only thing keeping me in hospital was that pesky blood pressure. Which I knew
We were finally FREE!
Well – nearly.
Two days later we were sent back to hospital (I cried, when they told me), as Rafferty was jaundiced. He was fine after two days in Special Care where he was fed lots of formula and had a go under sun-beds. And… we got on with life!
But, for years I felt like a fraud, like I hadn’t had a ’positive birth.’ I felt let down, and like I didn’t want to talk about it. This started off my first six
We all have bad experiences, and all of them are different. But it feels so good to share them, so that we know we’re not alone. Funny that it’s taken me 5 years to write about the thing that started it all off for me.
Now, I DON’T feel cheated by the birth experience, because I
Looking back on my pre-eclampsia; I feel fortunate to have the medical support that I did. I feel fortunate to live in the UK with the free NHS and not in a developing country where a hospital is a hut, a day’s walk away. I feel lucky to be born in 1977 and not 1877. I feel like we are the lucky
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NB: If you’re pregnant please ask your midwife about pre-eclampsia so you’re aware of what symptoms to look out for. I was lucky I had an astute midwife who noticed it straight away. Also visit Action on Pre-eclampsia website for more information.
