Hi, I'm Samantha Keel. I serve as the Walk Chair for the Chesapeake, VA Promise Walk for Preeclampsia, and this is my experience with postpartum eclampsia.
On Sunday March 5, 2023, I gave birth to my beautiful daughter. We were 41 weeks and 3 days and we'd had no complications. Our pregnancy was "text-book." I began feeling ill the evening of Monday March 6, but assumed it was hunger related. Over the course of the night, I continued to feel ill but my blood pressure and vitals were normal so I was given nausea medication and ultimately allowed to go home on Tuesday March 7.
I progressively got worse once I was home and was ultimately readmitted to the hospital on Wednesday March 8 to be evaluated for high blood pressure, Thursday March 9 (via ambulance), and Sunday March 12. My doctors told me again and again that my symptoms were not consistent with preeclampsia and it was just “stress and lack of sleep” and my anxiety making me ill. I consistently had to advocate for myself at a time I was most vulnerable.
On Sunday March 12, I had been discharged less than 24 hours before and I was experiencing extreme nausea, an extreme headache, and stroke-range blood pressures. We narrowly made it back to the hospital. Less than an hour after arriving at the hospital, I stopped responding to prompts and experienced the first of two eclamptic seizures. I spent two days in the ICU and all said, I spent the first two weeks of my daughter's life in the hospital.
In the weeks following, I spent a great deal of time searching the internet and trying to make sense of what happened to me. From there, I stumbled upon the Preeclampsia Foundation’s website and their Promise Walks for Preeclampsia. While I was disheartened that there was not already a Promise Walk in our area, I saw it as my opportunity to let other mothers in Chesapeake (and the greater Tidewater area) know that they are not alone.
Through support and solidarity, we can make a difference. I walk so my daughter does not have the same experience that I did. I walk as a reminder to doctors and mothers that preeclampsia (and eclampsia!) happens postpartum too.
Will you walk with me?