My HELLP Story

This week I am sharing my HELLP story with you.  It is a very personal story and I still have tears in my eyes as I write this out for all of you.  If you have been following me for a while you know that the journey to our family of six wasn’t smooth or easy.  It was filled with lots of tears and pain.  I have spoken candidly about our experiences with recurrent miscarriages.  But I haven’t really shared the birth story of our youngest son here with all of you.  I haven’t been unwilling to share, but sometimes I think it helps to have time to process all that happened.  So today, I am trusting you with the ups and downs of my HELLP story.

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 My Story

My youngest son is often referred to as my miracle baby.  All babies are miracles, but we walked through three consecutive miscarriages in our journey to have a fourth child.  My dad unexpectedly passed away at the end of December 2018 and two weeks later we found out we were pregnant again.  Obviously, I was nervous at the beginning of pregnancy, but with each ultrasound we continued to get good news.  Our baby was growing and thriving.  I was older now so I saw a high risk doctor as all women who are over 35 and pregnant too.  Each appointment with each doctor continued to go well and we were looking forward to my September due date. 

At 32 weeks I went in for an appointment with the high risk doctor and then followed by my regular doctor.  When I got there I found out my blood pressure was slightly elevated.  I have never had any problems with this before, but they checked and rechecked and sure enough my blood pressure was elevated.  It wasn’t an emergency situation at this point, but my OB told me I needed to rest as much as possible.  She said she would typically tell working moms they needed to pull back at work, but since I was a stay at home mom, I needed to try to rest as much as possible.  And she began to talk to me about the possibility of needing to deliver early. 

This was overwhelming, but honestly I still didn’t think it was THAT serious.  I wish at this point I would have done more to get help and spend more time resting.  I of course wasn’t running marathons, but I was still making dinner, running kids to school, and do all my normal mom duties.  In two weeks at my 34 week appointment on a Friday, my blood pressure was still high and I had a few lab tests that began to creep up.  They had me come back in on Monday and by that afternoon my labs had really elevated.  I had protein in my urine among other things and my doctor told me I needed to be admitted. 

I had gone to the appointment by myself and I remember crying in the elevator as the nurse wheeled me to the hospital side of the facility.  I stayed in the hospital for the next 24 hours while they gave me steroid shots to help baby’s lung development if I would need to deliver early.  At this point I had preeclampsia (high blood pressure), but after the shots my labs seemed to be in check so they discharged me on complete bed rest and with a schedule to be seen twice a week until baby came. 

I made it through one complete day at home before problems began again.  That night I began to have bad pain in my upper right back.  I tried to stretch, and get more comfortable, but the pain would not go away.  We had a home blood pressure monitor so I got up and checked my blood pressure.  It was elevated.  Not an emergency, but definitely up.  I remember sitting there and trying to decide if I was being dramatic or if I should call my doctor.  My mom, who was staying with us to help out, told me to call!  My doctor said, I better come into the ER.  In the ER, they ran tests, and what I didn’t know at that moment is my labs didn’t actually give my OB a reason to admit me, but she said she just had a feeling, so she had me stay to be observed and within an hour my blood pressure was spiking. 

My OB broke the news that baby would need to come today.  A NICU doctor came in to tell us about some of the things that we may experience with a premature baby.  It was overwhelming, but by God’s grace our Everett James was born at 35 weeks weighing 4 pounds 15 ounces.

 After Birth

The hardest part of my physical journey didn’t come until after birth.  I remember as I waited for an empty ER to have a C section and deliver Everett that the pain from my upper right back had started to radiate around my right side and to my front upper right body.  In fact it felt like someone had put a belt around my upper torso and was squeezing it.  I remember just being thankful for the spinal tap because it took away the pain.

What I didn’t know until after birth was that these were signs that my body was experience HELLP Syndrome.  I had never heard of HELLP Syndrome before Everett’s birth.  I am still not any kind of expert in explaining it.  But basically your red blood cells begin to break down, your liver enzymes go up and your liver function goes down, and you have low platelets.  The only way to stop the advancement of the symptoms of this life-threatening syndrome is to give birth to the baby. 

One of the other risks to the mother is the risk of seizures even after birth.  Because of this danger, I was put on a magnesium drip even before Everett was born.  Unfortunately, this meant I wasn’t allowed to go to the NICU and see my baby.  My husband would go and video chat with me, but honestly I was feeling pretty miserable at this point.  The next morning, I cried when the nurse told me that my labs had gotten worse and I would need to be on the magnesium for another 24 hours.  It’s hard to explain how you feel while on magnesium, but it isn’t great.  My head hurt and I just felt like I couldn’t process information very well.  And of course, I had to start pumping in the hopes that I would be able to get some milk for Everett. 

Finally, the next morning my body had begun to bounce back and I was released from the magnesium prison and was able to go downstairs and see my baby.  He was so small that he didn’t have enough energy to eat the milk he needed to grow.  So we would try to feed him as much as he would take and then he would get the rest in through a tube that was inserted in his nose.  Everett spent two weeks in the NICU and then was released.  He has had no lasting impacts from his premature birth.  I spent seven days in the hospital before being released.  I was on blood pressure medication for about a month and was slowly weaned off.  My blood pressure has been normal ever since and all other labs have returned to normal.

Why I am Sharing My HELLP Story

I guess there are a few reasons I am sharing my story with you.  First, I think it is just good for me personally to talk about my experience.  In my life, secrecy has only bread shame and I have nothing to be ashamed of in this story.  But I also share because I had given birth three times and had never heard of HELLP Syndrome.  The vast majority of women will never have HELLP syndrome, so I don’t think anyone needs to run around in fear of it.  But being aware of the symptoms and how it played out in someone’s life could help someone. 

The biggest reason I wanted to share is to remind every pregnant women that when in doubt always call your doctor.  They get paid to help you determine if your situation is an emergency.  You are not a doctor.  Google is not a doctor.  I look back now and feel so silly that I even questioned the decision to call my doctor that night.  Keeping you and your baby safe is worth feeling “silly” for asking a question.  I will always be thankful that God kept me and Everett safe and I pray for the women and babies whose HELLP stories didn’t end as happily as ours did.

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