My fateful encounter with pre-enclampsia

PATRICIA MAGANU
Staff Writer | Tuesday June 1, 2010 00:00

 

I think when peoaple experience something traumatic they immediately shut down and feel like they are alone, want to be alone and ask impossible questions to answer like 'why me?'. I am saying this because about a month ago I was pregnant, planning my baby's nursery, wearing maternity clothes, looking at baby names but as I am writing this story I am sitting at my desk wearing my tightest jeans. All because I had an encounter with deadly pre-enclampsia and it managed to rob me of the only thing -my baby- that had me believing that 2010 would be my best year.

Pre-enclampsia as I came to learn is a condition that sometimes affects pregnant women, due to high blood pressure.I know for people around me, family, friends and colleagues, it might be in the past and they might even be thinking that I am over it, but I am far from it as I can remember the fateful day as if it was yesterday. All I did was take precaution by going to the doctor when I had a headache and went to the clinic not knowing that it would be my last day to happily rub my protruding tummy.

It was on April 6, I remember it was a Tuesday, and I had a headache but I thought it was not a big deal since I was pregnant. Around lunch hour I went to the pharmacy downstairs from the office to check my BP but it was normal though my heart rate was a bit fast.

'Not to worry,' I thought to myself that if I still had the headache by the end of the day I would go to the clinic. I was 22 weeks pregnant.

When I knocked off  work at five I was feeling fine, I even took a 63-kilometre drive to my home village in Nshakazhogwe with my fianc to pick up my son and his cousin.

On our way back I still felt a faint headache but now I was also experiencing palpitations so decided to go to the clinic, little did I know that I was about to be acquainted with the worst nightmare of every pregnant woman; pre-enclampsia.

The medical dictionary defines Pre-enclampsia as such: 'A condition in pregnancy characterised by abrupt hypertension (a sharp rise in blood pressure), albuminuria (leakage of large amounts of the protein albumin into the urine) and oedema (swelling) of the hands, feet, and face. Preeclampsia is the most common complication of pregnancy. It affects about 5% of pregnancies. It occurs in the third trimester (the last third) of pregnancy.'

What I am wondering is that if it is so common how did  I not know about or maybe I did but I just thought that it would happen to me.

Anyway I went to the clinic and saw a nurse who after checking my BP asked me if I was stressed. I said no, maybe, why?She said, ' If you were stressed you would know but your BP is 177/80bps and it could be the one causing the headache.'She later transferred me to another clinic where there was a doctor.

When  I got there I saw a doctor who told me I was fine I should just get my BP checked every morning from then on.

As I was leaving the nurse who had seen me earlier and taken a urine sample told me that I could not possibly be thinking of going home.

She called my fiance and I into a room and told us that my BP was too high and that I also had protein in my urine and that the protein was not supposed to be there. 'The protein is not supposed to be there and it is showing three plus which is quite serious. She cannot go home tonight, I would have to refer her to the hospital,' she told my fiance.

Mind you, I had been calm the whole, since seven when I got to the first clinic and even now when I hear talk about referrals I am still calm though curious about the protein in the urine.

A few minutes later I was strapped to an intravenous drip and in an ambulance to Nyangabwe Referral Hospital.

When I got there the nurse monitored the IV ands also checked my BP which she told me was steadily going down. I got to the Emergency Room at 10 at night and was finally admitted at one in the morning to Gynaecology Ward.

I was getting a little frustrated because no one would tell me anything until a doctor woke me up at five in the morning, checked my BP and told me to go back to bed. The next morning I was sure that the doctor would come to my bed and tell me that I was fine I could go home as the nurse in the ward had checked my BP and found it normal. Little did I know that I was about to go through the most horrific time of my life.

When the doctor came that morning he was not bearing good news for me as he told me that he would have to talk me in private I panicked but I maintained my cool. In private he talked for what seemed like hours but in one simple sentence he was telling me that they would have to terminate my pregnancy because it was high risk. What he did not know was that what he called pregnancy, I called a baby.

What followed was a lot of excitement, grief, pain, crying from me, my fiance, my family and amidst all that we agreed; 'No termination'. I was shocked and astonished to say the least because even though I said no termination I knew deep down that I would have to do it and I knew that all those people around knew that it was going to happen even though they kept saying the doctor might be wrong.

After a day and much persuasion and being told by several doctors how dangerous the condition was for me I was induced into labour.

Do not ask me how it feels to be on in hours of labour and come out of it without  a baby. In one word it is horrible.

I was induced at 10 in the morning and I finally gave birth to my baby after eight at night. The nurse asked me if I wanted to see the baby and there he was, a boy weighing 470grams. Though he was not born alive he remains one of my children. Pre-enclampsia should be one of the most talked about conditions in medical facilities whether a woman is pregnant or not because not only is it deadly to mother and unborn child but it also robs people of their joy and can bring serious psychological damage to a woman.

I feel that women should always allow themselves to mourn even when the baby is not born because it is a big loss to lose someone you were highly anticipating to meet and cherish.

People always say that you will have another one and I honestly feel that it is the worst thing you can ever say to someone who has lost a baby, born or unborn, because people are simply irreplaceable and the bond of a mother and her unborn child is quite strong.