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Amber's story During the last trimester of my pregnancy, proteins showed up in one of my urine tests. That is when my doctor explained about pre-eclampsia and all the symptoms that come with it. Although, she told me that it was nothing to worry about because I probably didn't have it. When I left the clinic (which is located in the hospital), I was still a little confused on exactly what pre-eclampsia was. Throughout my entire pregnancy, my hands and feet were swelled. But during my last two months, I could barely make a fist and had to squeeze into my shoes. The swelling on my face was easily noticeable. I tried soaking my feet, elevating them, and everything. But nothing brung the swelling down. Then, one night when I was eight months pregnant, I seen little black spots. When I called the OB doctor on call at the hospital, she said you don't see spots like that when you have pre-eclampsia. A couple days after that, I had a headache for 5 hours, and Tylonol would not help. When I called the hospital again, they said it was nothing to worry about. When I went to my doctor's that same week, I told her what had happened with the headache and seeing spots. I also told her what the OB doctors on call had told me when I called. She said,"If they said it wasn't anything to worry about, then don't worry about it". I am not sure if my blood pressure was high throughout my pregnancy or not, but sometimes I would feel my heart pounding in my chest. It felt like I was going to have a heart attack or something. Still, with all this going on, the doctors told me not to worry. About 3 weeks before I had my baby, I had to take off school on maternaty leave because of how swelled my feet and ankles were. And for a while, I didn't have a doctor's note because they kept telling me that my swelling was not a reason to stay out of school. When I finally had my daughter, I was 5 days overdue. I went into the same hospital that I had my prenatal visits at when I went in labor. They tested me for proteins in my urine, and I did have some. And they were still not alarmed even after I told them about the doctors saying it was nothing to worry about, but I had the symptoms of pre-eclampsia. I think I was 9 centimeters dialated when the bottom number of my blood pressure shot up from 77 to 86. My grandma, being a nurse, new that it was serious, and she said something to the nurse about it. And again, their response was "Don't worry about it". She walked outside the room, talked to the doctor and rushed back in saying,"We need to get this girl medicine, now!" That's when they started the Magnesium I.V. My delivery went quick and easy after that. But what scares me is that I could have gone into convulsions or something from my blood pressure doing that. While pulling out my after-birth, they said my placenta was in pieces and the umbilical cord looked like it was about to detatch. Then, after the delivery they had an intern come in to stitch me up. The only problem is he didn't know what he was going. He wasn't stitching deep enough, and the thread was pulling through. And if that wasn't bad enough...... I could feel the whole thing. That's when they put me to sleep, and wheeled me to the O.R. There, they had to re-stitch everything. They kept the I.V. hooked up to me for 24 hours. It made me groggy and really tired. But the good news is that my baby is big and healthy.
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