Deborah's story

I had my son, Bryan, on June 12, 1998 at 27 weeks gestation. He weighed 1lb 8oz and was 13in long. My due date was Sept. 06, 1998.

From the very beginning of my pregnancy I should have know that something was not right. I was always sick. Everyday after 3 pm I was not able to keep any food down. I always though that that was my morning sickness for four and a half months. I was losing weight instead of gaining. I went from weighing 175lbs before being pregnant to weighing 135lbs when I was six months pregnant. I don't think that is normal.

I worked as a PBX operator at the hospital that my doctors office was at. While at work I would feel my hands an feet hurting from where the would get swollen. So knowing what doctors were taking call for mine I would page them and tell them about how I was feeling. They would tell me that that's was normal nothing to worry about. I made an appoint ment with my doctor to tell him. He couldn't find anything wrong. So a few weeks later I went in for my six month check-up, June 1st, 1998. That was the day my nightmare began.

They checked my blood pressure and it was high. They kept asking me how I felt. All that I could tell them was fine, because I did. He told me that my blood pressure was way to high and that, that was not good for me nor the baby. He added that he was going to admit me into the hospital for about two days just to control my blood pressure. Well they never got it controlled. I was in the L&D unit for a week. There I was getting magnesium through my IV. After about two and a half days I was not able to handle it. I couldn't feel my legs, I could walk, I just felt so ugly. It took about two days to get that out of my system and for me to get feeling back to my legs.

After two long weeks I had Bryan. What had happened was that my doctor was on vacation so he left one of his partners incharge if seeing me. The whole week she took care of me she kept saying how high risk I was. On that Friday, she told me that on Monday when my doctor came back they would take the baby out by c-section. She said that they would monitor me and the baby through the weekend, so I was transferred back from the floor to the L&D unit. Later on that night I was visiting with my sister when she, the doctor came in and told me that it was time. You want to know something funny. Earlier that day when she was telling me about delivering it she mentioned that she did not want to be the doctor in the delivery room with me because it was such a risky case, and she was the one indeed in that delivery room with me along with three other well know OBGYNs. Anyways, my sister and I were shocked and scared I was more scared that any thing. She called my husband, and my father. All sorts of things started going through my mind. My husband got there. He was telling me he didn't want to go in with me and by the time I had convinced him to go in, they told me he couldn't because it was going to be in the OR not Delivery Room.

That week was the week that I bloated up. My arms were so bad that it took them several times to fine a vein for and addition IV. The last thing I remember was freaking out on the operating table. I got an epidoral to try to stay awake to see my son. I guess that affected me so they had to sedate me. All I remember is fight with the anistesyolgist telling her that she was smothering me. I woke up the next morning about five. My father and my sister were there. I was tied down to the bed from my arms and my feet. I was on a ventilator and I had a main IV on my neck. That week was the longest week of my life. It took a day for them to get me off of the ventilator. It was hard being on it because I was able to breath and this machine was fighting with me because it was breathing for me. The whole week I was there I really did not know how sick I was. They had to call in a Hematologist to see me because my platelet levels had gone down, That week I spent in the ICU unit I had to receive plasma transfusions. All that I was going through I never felt any pain from my C section. I was depressed because I couldn't see my son.

I had them move me to a regular room but I didn't last 4 hors in there because I was so sick that I need constant care and they couldn't provide that for me on the regular unit. I pleaded and cried for them not to send me back I didn't feel the sickness, like they told me I was. Everything they did, all the blood drawls that the did I didn't understand it at the time. When I finally came home after 3 weeks, and on tons if different medications I realized what I had gone through. I was so embarrassed to go somewhere in public because I had somany bruises on my arms from all of the blood that they took and all of the times that the had to move my IV. You know after I came out of it all, I talked to the nurses that took care of me and the doctors, and they told me that when the doctors did the incision, that all of the water that I was containing came gushing out of my abdominal. That's how bad I was. They also told me that five out of seven girls that they get with the HELLP syndrome don't make it.

The doctors tell us that we were very fortunate to survive, usually the mom or the baby don't make it and in our case we both survived an doing wonderful. My three year old Bryan is very healthy and active. He is still a little behind in his weight but he is so active. Right now he is barley weighing 24 lbs. The good thing is that the doctor is not concerned at all. Bryan Michael Gonzales is a happy 3 yr old and most of all he is loving to everyone he meets. He is my miracle baby. He did very well the three months he was in the NICU. Never got sick and only needed to be on the ventilator for three days