If you've been following the blog, you know that I had spent Thursday in the hospital, only to be sent home and told to come back if I felt my symptoms were worsening.
But, I guess this story really starts 2 and a half years ago. After Kara was born, I was discharged and sent home from the hospital with almost no idea what happened to me, what the implications were, or what long term effects I might suffer, other than to be told I was 33% more likely than another woman to have HELLP occur in a subsequent pregnancy. My case had been severe and very a-typical. I never had any doctor follow up with me, and after a few months, when things returned to normal, Kara's birth story was just a memory (albeit a somewhat horrifying memory).
I have learned so much more from the team of doctors assigned to me during my stay here than I ever knew before. I've had medical counseling about what happened to my body, what the long-term implications are, instruction about the severity of my case and that every pregnancy I have is most likely to worsen in severity. If I knew what I know now about my "disease," especially because my presentations are so a-typical and rare, I probably would have seriously reconsidered me ever getting pregnant again--not just because of the risk to me, but because of the risk to my babies. However, that is a blog post for another day.
After going home Thursday, I tried to convince myself that it was all in my head. "I felt fine." I told my family I was ok.
Well, midnight rolled around, and I felt worse. I prayed that I would know what to do. I didn't want to go to the hospital just to be sent home again. I waited around a little, and felt very strongly that I needed to get to the hospital. So at 2:30, I woke my husband, who jumped out of bed, called the doctor, got Kara up and loaded in the car, and we made the horribly long and painful drive (or so it seemed to me) to Denver where the hospital is.
We got there, and the hospital staff once again put us in a room on the L and D floor in the observation wing. I heard other women there who were being observed and 20 minutes later sent to have their babies. I was in so much pain, and I was feeling frustrated at their "good fortune" of being taken seriously. The pain in my liver, neck, and head started to be unbearable (all are symptoms of HELLP). I don't remember when, but at one point, they finally started taking my pain seriously and started giving me Perkocet and Oxycodone. The resident assigned to my case (who had seen me the day before) was again perplexed about why I would be displaying such clear signs of HELLP, and yet have fairly normal lab work. I insisted several times that this was EXACTLY what had happened with Kara, and the resident and floor doctor decided it was time to get my Kaiser doctor and a perinatologist involved. It was this decision that I am fully convinced saved both my life and Jessalyn's life.
After the Kaiser doctor talked to me, the perinatologist came down and talked to me extensively about my history and how I was feeling. After meeting with me, she told me that she and the the rest of the medical staff assigned to my case felt it would be best to admit me and monitor me over the night until they could decide what was best for me and the baby--her size was still a cause for concern and they didn't want to just induce based on a "hunch." (The perinatologist later told me that based on my labs alone, they would have sent me home--but that she'd had a really bad feeling about sending me home and felt strongly that I needed to stay in the hospital. She also told me that she'd learned through her years of practice to trust women, especially high-risk women, when they say there is something wrong with their bodies. I am deeply grateful for her "bad feeling" and her knowledge, and truly feel that she was being guided by Heavenly Father).
So, I was sent up to an ante-partum room. And that is where I will leave off for now.
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