Hi All

Firstly i want everyone to know this post is not meant to scare anyone, Just something that I have been through this weekend and who knows if your ever in this position it may help in a big way.

My wife Katy finally went into labour with our twins at 38 weeks last Friday. After 6 hours of labour both Twins were born naturally without complications. We spent 1.5 hours in the delivery suite settling down and resting and having some time with our new babies. We were then moved into the maternity ward.

Within an hour my wife was complaining of terrible pains in her chest and back, was vomitting violently, shaking and had a crazy increase in blood pressure. After an hour of the midwives virtually ignoring her on the ward and just saying its just your insides getting used to having some space back another midwife did another blood pressure test, " this machine must be broken, it cant be that high." Second machine wheeled in and the same result. All of a sudden they were all very panicky and she was transferred back downstairs for it to be investigated properly.

We then waited for nearly 2 hours before a very heated exchange of words between myself and the senior ward manager resulted in a consultant turning up. By this point she could not stand up, said she had stabbing pains in her chest, had continued to vommit and was now shaking like you would not believe. Consultant took one look at her checked her blood pressure and basically went mad at the ward manager. Ordered immediate blood tests and several different scans to be done immediately. He informed me that it had all the symptoms of HELLP syndrome, an extreme form of pre eclampsia that affects the liver production and blood platelets. Its extremely rare for it to happen after labour, normally occurs during pregnancy. He informed me that if they could not control her blood pressure with drugs her liver and possibly other organs could fail. BUT as long as her kidney was still functioning it was a good sign as this tends to be the first organ to fail. 30 mins later and she stopped passin urine through a catheter. The doctor led me outside the room and informed me that this was a very bad sign and to expect the worst in the next few hours if nothing change.

She was transferred into intensive care at midnight, had 7 different lines going into her arms and one straight through the side of her neck. To say I was a mess was a massive understatment. its truely the worst feeling in the world that i have ever experienced.

Anyway, just for a change there was a happy ending, her kidney started to pass urine again and a strong mixture of drugs gradually stabilised her blood pressure. The syndrome that affects the liver had reduced her blood platelets (HELP WITH BLOOD CLOTTING)from a normalish 200 to 17 in 10 hours, a levelof 10 was described as critical, if a bleed were to start it would not stop. They started to build again and she was finally discharged from Intensive Care back into a monitored ward.

She and my new Twins should be well enough to come home Wednesday.

Reason for posting this I suppose is that I had never heard of this before and I know how useless I felt during the whole process. To add, my wife had no history of high blood pressure throughout the whole pregnancy and no complications medically in any way.

I found it quite sad that to get anything really done at this hospital and for anyone to listen I had to kick up a fuss and really push for things to be done. Another couple of hours of being ignored and I would be a single dad of 3 right now.

If something doesnt feel right and you feel these people are ignoring you make them listen in anyway you can. I would also like to add that the majority of staff we dealt with were exceptional...

Good luck to all you guys (and girls) out there with pregnancies out there, you can never be too careful.

Sorry if this is a bit serious for here (!) but if something were to ever happen and you could put this forwards and save some time of diagnosis it could be extremely important.

Ross

 

I know how you feel as my first wife had pre-eclampsia and both my first 2 kids were premature 8 and 6 weeks.

Just had my 3rd baby who is 9 weeks old tomorrow

Kids are great... Glad things worked out in the end...Dont be too hard on the staff... The NHS is shit !!

 

thank god for a happy ending, my heart was sinking the more i was reading

 

yes glad all was well in the end my heart sank a bit too reading that

 

Glad there was a happy ending mate congrats btw

 

OMG thats shocking fella. I can't believe it you had to kick up so much of a fuss to get anything done. What a shocking state of affairs.

Well, thankfully a happy ending, and congrats by the way.

 

i was fearing the worst as i was reading, but glad everythings ok for you mate, congrats to the pair of you on your new arrivals...make the most of the peace and quiet at home at the mo, its gonna be non existant after weds.

all the best
stu

 

Thank god all is well fella,that must have been shit scary. Fair enough point on the staffing issues,my boy had his femur broken in school last year and had to spend near as damn it a fortnight in hospital and the variation in staff competence varies dramatically,there was one particular shift that were chocolate teapot uselessness,but tbh the general level of care was excellent.

Good luck with the new additions and hope your mrs gets better soon.

 

Holy crap! Well done for kicking up a fuss and saving your wife bud!!!

Congratulations on the twins too.

 

glad to hear all ended well mate as for hospitals these days your advice is spot on there!! You never gave up thing is hospitals are to quick to give up with easy answers?? Hapening to much these days

 

tbh i had to go a bit mad when my lil un was comin, they continually tried pulling her out but it was obvious it was gonna happen

1 too many 'bad' bleeps on the machine and they got a dude to C section
shud have done that to start with

most of em came to appologise etc (avoiding a law suit?) the dude in charge obviously went mental at them once he knew what happened, told them there and then they should have called him hours ago and they should never not alert him

they all seem to be trainees and thus dont knwo all teh shit and are scared to get on with it, after they are fully qualified they go off and do something easier- surgeon told me that!
no way to start in the world is it!

 

Glad to hear all is ok mate (with the wife and the twins), me and my mrs are trying at the moment but had no luck so far, but tbh I enjoy the trying bit

 

Wow mad story. Its makes you wonder about the nhs. Some of there staff just dont seem to care. I just glad everything is ok now.

 

bloody hell! I was reading that and i was so pleased to read a happy ending, as i read it i thought it was going to be a very different ending...

congratulations on the birth of your twins and good luck for wednesday when you take your whole family home with you

 

what a rollercoaster of emotions!
glad to hear it ended well.

 

Thanks all, its been a mad few days.

One of you hit the nail on the head, level of competence between staff varies greatly, the majority were amazing and very supportive. Makes you wonder though what happens to the poor people that come in on a shift with the not so great staff. The staff in intensive care I think have one of the hardest jobs out there, i could not do that job for any amount of money.

Roll on the screaming, crying, shitting, sleepless nights lol...

 

congrats and glad everyone is ok now

 

great news that all 3 are doing fine now, not a good start, but hospitals are very busy places and at times they just don't have enough bodies to go round and you can feel helpless and I do know how you feel, my son who is 10 at christmas was born 15 weeks premature weighing only 2.0 lbs, after a long fight for life he made it, the staff at the hospital were fantastic while he was in there and there dedication in the first few weeks without a doubt saved his life..

steve

 

Congratulations on the birth of your twins! Short labour and uncomplicated birth sounds great, so to hear your wife ended up so ill, what a scare and how awful, thank goodness she on the mend

 

Enough about you what about the twins

 

When we was on the ward one of the nurses actually broke down in tears saying how tired she was, how hard it was to look after everyone there, I did feel a bit sorry for her as it just show's how understaffed hospitals are (

 

glad the wife ok mate, and congratilations on the twins!

 

Glad to read it was a happy ending!

And congrats on the twins

 

i was reading that thinking the worst so glad that thigns worked out ok in the end

to be honest, it all depends on how staffed the hospital are, first itme around there were 7 hurses and doctors and consutantls etc in the room when my wife gave birth, the second time around there was only 1

on a sadder note, one of the guys at work went to hospital this weekend with his mrs to have their second daughter and she died a few minutes after she was born

just goes to show that sometimes it's just the way things turn out

 

That must have been terrifying mate, my girlfriends 8 months pregnant and 2 weeks ago she started having very bad cramp like pains and burning after going to the toilet etc, eventually we got to the hospital and they said it was a urine infection which is very common but it had spread to her kidneys and she was in agony, she started to go into labor which at the time was 11 weeks before her due date, luckily they managed to stop the labor.

I was shitting myself just at that so can't imagine what you wouldve been going through.

Glad to hear she's making a recovery and hope she gets better soon and congratulations on your new babies.

 

Congrats on the new borns mate

I have just had my first and even though the labour problems went as serious as yours we had our problems. 32 hours of labour with 8hrs being fully dialated, the other half was so physically tired she was falling asleep between contractions, it all came to a head when she went unconscious due to mass dehydration and exhaustion. The surgeon kept coming checking her then saying he would be back in 15 mins to check on her progress and ended up taking 40 mins to get back, after the second time of this happening I lost it big time and went beserk,the babys heart rate was dropping loads and you could see the concern on midwives faces...... 1hr later in theatre forceps delivery and my little girl was born, fuck I was exhausted let alone my other half.