Hello, an introduction, horror story and question all in one!

Colleen - posted on 01/26/2009 ( 2 moms have responded )

Hey guys, just a short intro and question to introduce myself to this community. My name is Colleen and I'm a pretty recent first time mom, my daughter Laurelyn is 16 months and is absolutely wonderful. She has yet to give me any major problems so far as sleeping, breast feeding, weaning, or anything else is concerned really. So I count myself REALLY lucky.





The only major problem we ever hit was when it came down to delivery. I had one of the worst experiences ever at south shore hospital in weymouth ma with crown obgyn. At 39 weeks I started having crazy high blood pressure, which they attributed to nerves but I really wasnt nervous. It was actually preeclampsia but they didn't bother to test me thoroughly for it. So when I was down to 41 weeks and started the early stages of labor, I went to the hospital and was seen by an anesthesiologist who told me that I couldnt deliver normally and that I was going to have to have a c-section. So after I finally delivered my baby, beautiful healthy and wide eyed, I wasnt able to truly enjoy what should have been the greatest moment in my life. Because my blood pressure was sky high, I could see my hands and face swelling right in front of my eyes, I couldnt see because my head felt like it was going to explode and my vision got all blurry and messed up and even though I told them about it



THEY WERE GOING TO SEND ME HOME!



Two minutes before we left the room to be discharged, another doctor (they had been bouncing me around so many doctors during my stay that I couldnt keep them straight) asked me how I was doing, after telling him how I felt (which I had been telling everybody else who would listen but who did nothing) he ran a blood test and asked that I stay in the hospital until they could figure it out. They continued to chalk up my symptoms to crazy things that they kept freaking me out with, life threatening things like a blood clot in my lung, in my heart, a blood clot in my brain, maybe the spinal tap went wrong, so finally after about a week in the hospital they figured it out and I was finally treated for it with magnesium which I swear made some of my symptoms more severe, especially the headache and vision problems I was having . And then they still sent me home with high blood pressure which once i saw a regular ob for my checkup a week or so later, he flipped out and sent me to another hospial because apparently it was dangerously high. It finally went down after they put me on blood pressure medication, which they should have done in the first place, and went away completely three months after my daughter was born. Needless to say this whole ordeal had me completely stressed out and depressed and just a major wreck for the duration of it. My husband was terrified that he was going to lose me and weve never been so scared in our lives.



There really was no need for us to have gone through what we did if they had followed up on me and not let me slip through the cracks. So now that I'm thinking about trying for another baby in the summer, I really need to find a good obgyn and since I know im more than likely to have complications, I would really like a doctor that goes to brigham and womens in boston. Anybody have any good suggestions?



I am really glad that there are communities like this where you can get some real information and insight from other mothers who have gone through things like I have. I never even heard of hellp syndrome before and now that Ive learned about it Ive realized that thats what I was suffering from. (The doctors were less than happy to tell me what I actually HAD) I'm really nervous about actually trying for another baby and am questioning if its right for me to potentially put my life at risk when I already have a daughter to take care of.



Anyhoo, thanks for reading guys if you actually made it this far :o) and I look forward to talking to some of you.