Preeclampsia is a disorder with which I am too familiar; it nearly cost my unborn child and me our lives in 1998.
My then-husband (Ed) and I were living on Scott Air Force Base, Illinois; he was stationed there as an Air Force officer. My pregnancy was a difficult one with many issues, but we were not prepared for this devastating diagnosis.
One Sunday, he had gone out of state for a class, and I was not feeling very well. I had a bad headache, some pain in my upper right quadrant of my abdomen, and felt very angry for no reason. A little voice inside me told me to call my friend Linda Davis, a retired Air Force nurse. She listened to me vent about my headache and anger issues, and calmly suggested I call my obstetrician's office when it opened the next morning. I told them my symptoms, and they urged me to come in right away.
Linda saved our lives.
I was stunned to discover that my blood pressure was greatly elevated, and that I had excessive protein in my urine. Dr. Wright asked where Ed was, and I told her he was out of town. She then asked me if someone could go to my house and pack a bag for me. This raised quite the internal alarm for me, because we lived only two blocks from the base medical center. “It must be really bad if she isn’t letting me leave.”
The medical center staff tracked down Ed's commander, who arranged for him to catch the next flight back to the base. I was so thankful to have him home, because I was pretty scared at that point.
My condition deteriorated further, and it was decided that I would be flown, via an Air Force C-9 medevac plane, to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio; Scott Air Force Base did not have a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), and we were looking at a premature delivery, though we did not know how premature it would be.
I was at 29 weeks gestation when we arrived at Wright-Patterson. We hoped to avoid delivery until 32 weeks gestation, but that would not happen. My condition deteriorated rapidly. Preeclampsia constricts the mother’s arteries, and relaxes the veins. The veins then release excess fluid into the mother’s body, causing severe, rapid weight gain and edema. Not only does this happen to the mother—the arteries and veins of the baby’s umbilical cord experience this, which means blood flow to the baby is restricted, causing distress.
My veins kept blowing and collapsing, so my IV no longer worked. The IV was delivering magnesium sulfate into my body to prevent high blood pressure-induced seizures, so it was vital to restore access. Attempts to place PICC lines in my upper arms failed. Finally, I had to have a central line placed in my internal jugular vein (yes, in my neck). While they were placing the line, my baby started crashing. At that point, all I remembered was the nurse placing an oxygen mask on my face and telling me to breathe deeply.
After that, I was not allowed to have anything to eat or drink. I spent the night wide awake, because I was afraid of going to sleep; I was worried we would die.
My baby deteriorated further during the night (and so did I--my liver and kidneys were failing), so the next morning, May 18th, it was decided I would have an emergency cesarean section to delivery my baby. At 1:12 p.m. Eastern time, Sarah entered the world with a squeak instead of a cry. Her lungs were not fully developed, so she was placed on a ventilator. She weighed one pound, 13 ounces, and was 12 ½ inches long.
Sometime later, the doctor who saved our lives told Ed that if we had waited 12 more hours, Sarah and I would have died.
We spent the summer at Wright-Patt, with Sarah in the NICU until she was stable enough for discharge and a medevac flight back to Scott on August 4, 1998... two days after her actual due date.
There is so much more to our story, too much to put here. What I will say, however, is that she is almost 22 years old now and healthy. We are blessed beyond measure.
Research in the past decade or so has brought some breakthroughs into the causes of this devastating disorder. You can read more about this here. My grandmother had preeclampsia, progressing to eclampsia and seizures, when she was giving birth to my mother. It skipped a generation before striking again in me. It is my deepest hope that, should Sarah decide to have children, she and my descendants will be spared the fear, pain, and havoc preeclampsia wreaks on families.
I invite you to join our team, House of Bane, and/or donate to the Preeclampsia Foundation's Promise Walk for Preeclampsia on Sarah's and my behalf, and on behalf of all those who are affected.