Preeclampsia: My 11th Birth Story

Today, my blog is in honor of the many brave mothers and babies who have suffered with Pregnancy Induced Hypertension /Preeclampsia. This problem with very high blood pressure and extreme swelling and possible organ failure usually develops near the end of pregnancy and the standard cure is inducing labor. Many babies and mothers have died because their symptoms were overlooked until it was too late. If you are pregnant and text the word BABY to 511411, you can now receive monthly texts with vital information you may need for your pregnancy. Here is the first part of my story, which I wrote for the website at preeclampsia.org.

I developed PIH/ preeclampsia after the birth of my 11th child when I was 39 years old, so my story is about as unusual as it gets. Having had 11 babies in 16 years is unusual enough. My husband and I decided when we met that we would trust God to give us the babies HE wanted us to have, so we have never used birth control... our first child was born by C-section 10 months after we married, the next one 13 months after that, and the rest were born between 16 and 22 months apart for the next 16 years. I had three children at home after the C-section nightmare of the first. I discovered I didn't need a C-section. and it pushed me to discover alternative choices to the traditional hospital-style birth. After my midwife moved away and I was involved in a car accident, I had another C-section (this one an emergency) because they thought I had spinal cord damage from the car accident. Anyway, this gave me the amazing opportunity to become a V-BAC twice!

My next six births were in a hospital, but I called all the shots, only going in when I was ready to push, enduring the twenty minute baseline on the monitor while standing up and walking in place. I learned that, for me, labor is manageable if I walk through it. Afterward, though, it was nice to be in the hospital and be cared for, since that put less burden on my growing family, and grandma (later older kids) could take over at home.

I had Jewel Anne on May 9th, 2005. She is the only one of our babies to come early, and she was five days early... thanks to my discovery of raspberry tea as a labor stimulant. What I think is interesting is that I developed PIH five days after she was born, on her expected due date. I had gone home Tuesday after spending the night in the hospital as usual, was feeling weak and tired, but figured I am almost forty, so that's to be expected. On Friday I woke up with a horrible headache which got worse throughout the day, but I took some percocet (which I take for after-pains) and got on with the day because I had a test already scheduled for a group and I didn't want to reschedule. (I run a home business seasonally administrating tests for home schoolers in my area) and, of course, had to nurse the baby, run the household and get on to work.

While I was administering the test that morning, I remember thinking how odd it was that I was having trouble seeing. I couldn't focus very well at all, and kept trying to measure my vision. It was as if I had a gold swirling vortex in front of my eyes and had to try to look around it or through it. This, plus tiredness and the intense headache which kept getting worse, made me a little concerned.

By the time I had gotten done testing and everyone had gone home, my sister-in-law and family showed up to see the baby and stayed the day. I wanted so much to cancel with her that morning, but my husband had said they were so looking forward to it, and were traveling two hours to come see her. He talked me into it, so I had all of my children plus my sister-in-law and her four around all day. I did go up and take a nap after lunch, but by dinner time I was on two percocet and the headache was still very intense, I was swollen so badly my shoes would not go on my feet, and I was pretty sure this was something serious.

I had my husband take me to the emergency room. They took my blood pressure and became very concerned. In the twenty minutes we waited for the doctor to come in and admit me it had raised substantially. They put me in a room on intervenous magnesium sulfate and tried to keep me quiet and still. I remember being frustrated that I couldn't even read my Bible because of the visual disturbances, as I would have liked the comfort. It was so hard sending my newborn baby home with my husband, pumping milk for her and not being able to nurse her unless they brought her in. It was even harder then to send her with a friend the next night as my husband had taken all the time off he could and had to go back to work.

I was so hypertensive that they would check my reflexes and I would kick HARD halfway across the bed. I have never had reflexes like that!! The hypertension made me feel like I was on 10 cups of coffee, and even with the mag sulfate I couldn't sleep for three days.
But God met me in that hospital room in the middle of the night. I discovered a station that played beautiful soothing Christian music and showed beautiful pictures with verses from the Bible superimposed on them. I would be praying and asking God a question, and the next verse would very often be my answer! It was amazing, and I felt HIS presence and power so clearly there, and I was not afraid in the least. I had such a peace that this was all going to work out for good. I know my children and church family were praying up a storm.

Because the normal treatment for PIH is to deliver the baby, they couldn't do that in my case. We just had to wait it out. It took me five days to be sent home from the hospital. I still remember what a relief it was to finally sleep! My recovery was slow going. I had been injured in a car accident six weeks before the baby was born (nothing too serious, just a whiplash-type injury to my neck and shoulder) so I had to see the chiropractor in a town ten miles from my home twice a week for six months, then once a week for the rest of the year.
That injury has now healed, Praise God! But between the recovery from PIH, car accident and sleep apnea which had also been diagnosed before the accident, My health was not what it had been. I did not lose the baby weight in between that pregnancy and the next.

I am now 16 months past my last birth, and Jewel is a happy healthy child who is very bright and understands everything. She nursed and took a bottle for ten months. I am now 30 weeks along with baby number twelve. My OB's have not seemed at all concerned about the PIH, even though I am now a higher risk, having had it and being overweight and forty years old. Early on in this pregnancy, I was having intense abdominal pain on the upper right side. I also felt crummy a lot. It just seemed that something wasn't quite right. The docs I saw were completely unconcerned. Those feelings seemed to fade during the second trimester and are back now that I am in the third trimester. This is unusual for me, but I have learned a lot reading on this website. It strikes me how many women knew something was up long before the doctor would admit it. Many have described pain and swelling early on which was almost always dismissed as indigestion, gall bladder, etc. This has really helped me not to feel I am being a hypochondriac.

(Through the next pregnancy, I monitored my blood pressure (mostly by going to KMart or Safeway when I was shopping and doing the free test where you sit down and stick your arm in the fixed cuff). I also always asked the nurse what the numbers were at prenatal appointments. You know they always want to say, "It's okay," but I persisted and ask what the numbers were. My blood pressure has always been very low when not pregnant and pregnant until now... so low they would say, "Wow. That's a really great low pressure." In between my seventh and eighth children, for instance, it was 100 over 50. During pregnancy number 12 I checked it at Safeway when I was feeling really rotten. It was 139 over 83. The OB's said that was okay, but they didn't really know my history. The doctor I saw for years stopped delivering babies six years ago, and for those three births I was stuck in one of those clinics where you see a different doctor every time.

I tried increasing my calcium intake with the end of the next pregnancy. Whenever I am lacking calcium in pregnancy I get severe leg cramping in the middle of the night, and I was having some episodes so I thought it couldn't hurt. I can almost always alleviate this in one day by drinking a couple of glasses of milk or taking some liquid or coral calcium vitamins. Also, I tried taking a low dose of aspirin, and of course making sure I got adequate protein and liquids. Exercise was harder to come by consistently because of the time of year , as I test seasonally).
(Postscript to the article I wrote: Despite my best efforts, I developed preeclampsia /PIH with baby number 12, Ezra James. The doctors believed it was so random, it would never happen again, but I saw the numbers increasing and ended up being admitted in exactly the same time period, after baby was born, which was doubly rare... again. This time, the doctor limited my liquids, which in my opinion was pointless and painful. But God's grace was so abundant to me, and my children are very healthy.
With baby number 13, Keturah Rose, I had similar elevated pressures, but it was not severe enough to warrant a hospital stay. Happy Dance!!)

Blessings to all of you women out there who have been through this horrible ordeal. May you seek God and find health and healing.