I got pregnant after nine months of trying back in 2010 with no fertility drugs – a win for someone with PCOS - but I had a very difficult pregnancy. I was bed rested with preeclampsia at the end of my second tri, but I was told that nothing besides the high BP was wrong with me or with our son. I had gained very little weight due to morning (really, all day and all night) sickness that didn’t let up for 7 months, so I was worried when I gained 5 lbs of water weight just in my last two weeks. At a routine dr appt, my BP skyrocketed, and so my OBGYN told me to go straight to the hospital to be induced. After three days and very little dilation, I woke to nurses telling me that my baby had just gone into respiratory distress, so I was to have an emergency C-section. Despite complications with the surgery (anesthesia), my son and I were doing fine and were discharged three days later. However, I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t lost any weight with the delivery. As an explanation, I was told that being on an IV for so long could have waterlogged my body, so I accepted that, and hoped that the swelling would go down sooner rather than later.
After two days at home, my ankles had swelled so much that I was putting ice packs on them. By the next day, I was telling my OBGYN that I was having trouble breathing. She was concerned and told me to go to the ER, but after the past week, I had had quite enough of hospitals, thank you very much. Since it felt like asthma, I had my husband pick me up an inhaler, and I decided to give it a little time and watchful waiting. Well, that night I couldn’t sleep without choking no matter how many pillows I used, and I accepted defeat – I went to the hospital at 7 am exactly one week after having my son and begged for oxygen. After they ran blood gases, did a lung x-ray, and a myriad of other tests, they admitted me to the hospital with an IV full of Lasix and a diagnosis of CHF. Never in a million years would I have expected that – I mean, I thought I was having an especially bad asthma attack!! That night, using paid databases that I have access to (did I mention that I’m a medical librarian?) I self-diagnosed myself with PPCM. However, it took me nearly a year to find the right cardiologist who understood the condition and didn’t scare me with stories about an ICD and/or a heart transplant in my future.
Two years after having my son back in August of 2011, I was considered fully recovered. However, I will have to remain on a BP med probably for the rest of my life. I was told by both my cardiologist and my OBGYN that we could consider having another child after passing a 3D echo and a cardiac stress test. After a lot of soul searching, we decided to give it a go. Well, we weren’t so lucky the second time around and ended up having a chemical pregnancy in May 2014. We tried to conceive for about 8 mos last year to no avail, and we stopped when I ended up having a bad reaction to Aldomet, which I had been told to take while trying to conceive and throughout pregnancy. Since I had had problems with beta blockers already, my BP med choices during pregnancy were now very limited. After another drug I tried gave me migraines, I was out of the safest options, so I’m currently back on Lasix. Although my OBGYN and cardio reluctantly said with fetal monitoring we could keep on trying for a second child, we’ve decided as a couple to count our blessings and accept our little family as it is.
My Details
- Date Diagnosed: 19/08/2011
- Child: 1
- Initial EF: 40
- Current EF: >55
Story By Anne Marie Clift Colletti