I’m guessing you may never have heard of HELLP Syndrome. We hadn’t either until I was diagnosed with it while 36 weeks pregnant with our first little superhero. I’ll give you the good news first, we both survived and are here today to share with others about this life threatening condition so that hopefully you and your loved ones will know ahead of time and be proactive if you notice any of the side effects.
We got married in May 2012, and were ready to have kids right away since we got a late start to this whole marriage thing. Ryan’s mom had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer just 7 weeks prior to our wedding day. One of her life goals was to be a grandma, and with Ryan being her only child, we were on a mission. We got pregnant in July and she was over the moon to find out she would get her grandbaby.
I was nauseous a lot! And my blood pressure started rising at 32 weeks. My OB had me coming in more often and scheduled more ultrasounds just to make sure everything was going well. I was doing non stress tests (NST) too and of course Victoria decided that would be a great time to nap. So it was stressing me out when they would say she wasn’t moving as much as they would like her to. They kept monitoring me for pre-eclampsia but I didn’t have protein in my urine, so all looked well. My OB would ask if I had upper right quadrant (URQ) pain and I did not, so I would always answer no. I wish she would have warned me what it could mean… because when I did have the pain, I just thought it was gas.
We had our baby shower on a Saturday and halfway through opening gifts I had some sharp pain under my ribs. I thought she positioned herself so her little butt was just stuck under my ribs. If I pushed on it, the pain would go away so I just held my hand on that spot and let my hubby open the rest of the gifts. The pain went away later, so I didn’t think anything of it.
We had our 2nd of 4 classes at the hospital the Wednesday after our baby shower and stopped at Babies R Us on the way home to pick up our car seat and stroller combo. I had that pain again, and was sure it was gas. I tried taking a bath, sitting in the recliner, I could not sleep, so my hubby watched The Vow with me since he had gotten it for me for Valentine’s Day. I put up with all the superhero movies, he puts up with chick flicks. We are a good combo. I watched the movie and still didn’t get any relief. I was feeling a little nauseous too so I ate a little bag of salty chips…. which I ended up throwing up later. I tried to sleep through the pain, but I couldn’t. I ended up leaning over an ottoman in our bedroom trying to see if it was gas if I could get it to come out (TMI much?)… It didn’t.
Then it hit me! Was this the pain my OB had been asking about? What did it mean if it was? It was about 3 am, and I knew my doctor would not be answering since the calls went to a call center, so we called the hospital. They told us to come on in for testing. I didn’t have a bag packed since my OB planned to talk to me on Friday about scheduling an induction at 37 weeks. So, I threw a few things together for myself just in case I would have to stay. We already knew there was a chance that during a non-stress test they could decide to keep me in the hospital for monitoring, so I wanted to be prepared.
We went into the ER to get up to the L&D floor and they took me into a room in the laboring wing. We could hear ladies in pain… they ran labs and gave me some gas x to try to help with my “gas”. Ryan was so tired, he laid on the ground to try to get some sleep since he had to work in the morning. It was also supposed to be my last day in the office. My company let me work from home 3 days a week and only drive in 2 days a week and we had just had my baby shower on Tuesday and Thursday would be my last day in the office then I’d work the last 4 weeks from home full time since I was considered high risk and my OB didn’t want me driving in after 36 weeks since it was a 35 minute commute. I emailed my boss to tell her I was having labs run, so I would probably be in late… they were just about to release me when the doctor came in to say they got my labs back and I had HELLP Syndrome. The only cure would be to deliver so I would be having a baby that day.
I emailed my boss again to let her know I wouldn’t be coming in after all and that my maternity leave would start now. We also called both of our moms since they had a commute to get to the hospital. My mom would be driving to Ventura from Visalia and his mom would be driving from Carlsbad. They started inducing hoping to get labor progressing, they also put me on a magnesium sulfate drip which… is not pleasant, but it would hopefully keep me from having a stroke or seizures. It made me hot… and they would check me every few hours. I didn’t dilate… even after 3 inductions I didn’t dilate. They did warn me that if my platelets got too low, they would need to do an emergency c-section.
The moms stayed at the hospital with us all day they went back to our condo in Camarillo to take care of our “baby”, he’s our fur baby, Rinzler that we rescued right after we got back from our honeymoon. At 1:30 am they said my platelets had gotten too low so they needed to do an emergency c-section. If they could get me a bag of platelets I could stay awake and my hubby could join me in the OR. If they couldn’t, I’d have to be put under. We got the bag of platelets! We called the moms and they headed to the hospital to wait.
The c-section was scheduled for 3:00 am and I was hungry…. I hadn’t eaten in almost 24 hours. While they were cutting me open, I was tired and hungry and loopy with the mag. I asked my hubby, “When I can eat again, can I have some In N Out?” I LOVED In N Out, and it didn’t help that the OB and the nurses started talking about In N Out after I said that.
Victoria Faith was born at 3:15 am on 3/15/2013, a month ahead of her 4/11 due date (but we thought she might wait until her daddy’s birthdate a few days later). I held my breath until I heard her crying then I started crying. They took her immediately to the NICU because she was having a little trouble breathing on her own, so I only got to see her from across the room. I told Ryan to go with her… and I took a little nap while they sewed me back up. They took me to a cold recovery room that looked pretty uninviting with concrete walls and just curtains between beds. My hubby was already calling to see if the could come and see me but they made him wait 30 more minutes. I was shaking… but my mom had warned me that that might happen. They said I had to stay there until I could move my legs on my own. My hubby finally got to come in and brought me the camera to show me pictures of our baby girl. Since I had a spinal and had low platelets I would have to remain flat on my back for 12 hours so I wouldn’t bleed out of the spot the spinal went in. I had to wait for the mag to get out of my system as well so relaxing wasn’t a bad thing, but I was anxious to go meet my baby girl.
They did run labs to keep checking my liver enzyme and platelet levels and by the end of that night everything was back to normal. Not everyone with HELLP gets better as soon as they deliver, some women have it a lot worse than I had it. We are blessed that we were both fine. Victoria spent 5 days in the NICU then got to come home with us, I’ll write about that in a separate post.
Here is a great site if you want to read more about HELLP Syndrome
http://www.whatthehellp.com/