Susana's story

I'm Susana, 37, and first of all you would have to apologize me for my bad english but I will do my best.

I have three children, my eldest is 15 now and I was diagnosed preclampsia during my pregnancy, my feet were very swallen and my blood pressure was high. The labor went out perfectly and the baby was born well, without any epidural, in a vaginal delivery that is still very nice in my memories.
The second child, Camila, now 14 years old, was born after a very good pregnancy with no diagnosis of preclampsia at all. The delivery was very very quick and I almost had no time to arrive to hospital.

After 14 years and with a IUD inside my uterus I got pregnant last year of a boy. At the first time the pregnancy had the risk of that IUD inside that could harm the baby, after a couple of months doctors saw there was not any more risk, but my feet started to grow full of water during the day, but at night, after getting up to go to the toilet several times, they went right. This was at the beginning, afterwards there was no way to fit in my current shoes. My blood pressure started to rise and I had to measure it three or four times a day. I learned to do it at home by my own!
At week 37, on January 11th this year, a monitor of baby's heart showed he was not well and that the delivery had to occur that same day. I entered hospital with a dilatation of 3 cm in the neck of my uterus. I was given some oxitocin to induce a start but after half an hour, the contractions continued on their own so they did not give me any more oxitocin. Delivery started, baby was a little depressed, I was given some oxygen, and finally he was born with an Apgar figure of 6, he was given oxygen too and a couple of minutes after he was ok. At the moment of the contractions and when I had to push so hard, the baby was with his face looking up (as if he was watching the roof, instead of the floor) so that slowed a little bit the expulsion. Two people (the anesthesist and a woman) pushed very hard with hands and arms over my belly to help me with my pushes, They made that twice and finally the baby was outside. He harmed himself his nose a little bit as he hit my pubis bone while going out.

This could have been all the story, if things wouldn't have gone so bad afterwards.

After two hours in my room at hospital, with my baby with me, and my husband and our two young daughters, I started bleeding quite much and I almost fainted once. My husband called a nurse and a doctor and they both said it was quite normal to faint after a delivery. An hour later I was very very pale, my sister took my two girls to her home as the situation was becoming terrible. I fainted completely and my husband told me I never answered any more his calls shouting at me "Susana, Susana!!", a doctor was called and came immediatley, I had blood all in the bed, my nightgown was completely red, I had blood underneath my body up to my neck. I was taken to a part in hospital where 6 people worked on me during almost 4 hours to try to put me out of my shock, fill me again with blood (I was transfused 15 litres (that is 30 pounds) of blood, crio- something, platelets and red globules and all that stuff). This means I lost three times all the blood of my body. I was totally unconscius, in a state of shock and almost a coma. When they finally stabilize me - I remember saying some things as "it hurts"or "What is happening?" They took me into the operation theatre and operated me taking away my uterus and one ovary. They told me they saved the other one with hard effort soaking it while everything was bleeding.
I woke up in intensive care unit, the next morning with all my body swallen "as a dead cow" my husband said afterwards laughing when everything had passed. I was given morfine and stayed there (with a high risk of not recovering, my husband was told), for four days. Then I was moved to a common room where I could see my baby for the first time in five days!!! I cried so much!!! (you see, the baby blue is normal in normal deliveries, you can imagine after all this stress...).
While I was in intensive care some milk was extracted from me with a mechanic device, so at that time I was able to feed my baby and I did it with extreme pleasure. He is now almost four months and is wonderful.
I left hospital with an anemia impossible of being imagined by anybody, I was not able to stand up alone from a chair, I couldn't shower myself alone, I had no energy to do anything but stay in bed and feed the baby.

I read the stories of other women having passed and survived preclampsia at Helen's site, and I found no one of a delivery followed by such an extreme and heavy bleeding. I think I suffered the Hellp syndrome as my platelets count dropped drastically and my blood was bot clotting any more and I almost bled to death.
I apologize for being so long. hope this story helps someone. Even if I think that there was really nothing I could have done to avoid this Hellp attack.

Susana