I had a relatively normal pregnancy, with some minor issues of fainting and a racing heart, and high blood pressure throughout that were all waved away as normal and common. Around 32 weeks, I started experiencing intense pain in my right upper quadrant (RUQ) and shoulder at night. The pain was so intense that I couldn’t sleep during the episodes and would vomit. The pain would go away in the morning and during the day so I assumed it was the baby hitting a nerve, or something similar and not a big deal. When the pain got too intense (almost a week after it started) I called my doctor who said it was probably just heartburn and I needed to start taking a stronger heartburn medication and let it work. I dealt with the pain for another few days and when the medication and diet changes did nothing to help the pain I went into my doctor. She thought for sure I had gallstones so she ran some blood work and sent me for an ultrasound of my gall bladder.

The next morning, my doctor called and said my gall bladder was normal but my liver was enflamed and my labs were abnormal with elevated liver enzymes and low platelets. She told me to go in immediately for monitoring. We were admitted that day after my labs did not improve. We spent the next 36 hours as a “medical mystery” - with no one able to figure out what was wrong. My labs were pointing towards preeclampsia but I had no other symptoms. The intense RUQ pain flared again around midnight on my second day in the hospital and it was clear my body was done. Around 10:30 am, a doctor came in and said they were diagnosing me with Severe HELLP Syndrome. She said I skipped through all of the signs of preeclampsia and now my platelets were too low to let me go any longer. She also said I would need to deliver naturally, as my platelets were too low for an epidural and the risk of bleeding out in a C-Section was too high. I voiced my concern about this as I couldn’t even take a deep breath from the pain, but I was ignored and told that plenty of women have done this so I could too. I was just hoping the pain might magically subside enough for me to push after that.

I was moved to a delivery suite and given Pitocin and two units of platelets. I made no progress and a few hours later they told us I was too sick to stay and they had an ambulance ready to take me to a different hospital. It was terrifying to be alone in an ambulance in this situation and alone at the new hospital while my husband tried to catch up to us. They immediately pulled the trigger on a c-section because my LST had reached 1,300 (the normal range is 0 - 45) and I had made no progress on Pitocin. I was wheeled to the OR alone, put under full anesthesia and our baby girl was born at 34 weeks.

I did not handle the Magnesium well. I needed my husband and nurses to do everything for me, including pumping, and I also needed a blood transfusion. They were hoping to transfer me up to postpartum in the morning but I needed 1:1 care for a full 24 hours after the surgery. I met my baby on a stretcher on our way up to a different room a full 24 hours after she was born. She was doing well in the NICU, which was the light spot in all of the chaos. I was discharged 5 days later – it took a full two weeks for my lab values to return to normal. Our baby spent 15 days in the NICU. We are grateful for the wonderful care she received and grateful for the staff at our second hospital who took our situation seriously and gave us the care we needed. I share our story so that any woman, like me, who knew something was wrong and wasn’t heard might fight a little harder and advocate for herself and baby above being polite or easygoing.