Week 37 - the roller coaster

Back to week 37

The roller coaster

From that moment on things were going pretty quickly. I began to feel increasingly sick, this was very disturbing, because of the IV I should have felt better, not worse. My blood pressure was suddenly also doing strange things. During the pregnancy it was on the low side, now it continued to increase to high levels. That explained in part why I started to feel anxious. The severe nausea didn't go away in the slightest. Things were not going well at all.

1:45 pm - Shortly after that the gynaecologist stopped by to tell us what she knew and thought was going on. They were concerned that I might have a rare complication that is triggered by a pregnancy. We were told that it was a very serious conditition and also rare. Nobody knows what triggers it, but it was known that only birth would be the cure, and that it needed to happen fast. They told us at that moment that we had to be prepared that our baby most probably would be born that day.

2:00 pm - Not much later, the gynaecologist returned with an internist, meanwhile there had been more results from de new blood samples: de indications were so strong that I might have the AFLP syndrome that the process was started to deliver the baby. AFLP, was the explained, is short for: Acute Fatty Liver in Pregnancy, a very serious condition that quickly leads to hepatic (liver) failure, all sorts of bodily levels (enzymes, platelets) start doing strange things, kidney failure, and if rapid treatment is not iniated: death for mother and child. It is also a condition that manifests itself suddenly (hence acute) and that is not very well understood. But that was not the most important thing at that point, more important was that because of my condition and expected further complications a "normal" delivery was out of the question, and a emergency cesarian had to be executed. Normale operations were canceled as a result of this and preparations (including necessary people and a generous supply of blood) in progress.

2:10 pm - The gynaecologist and internist subjected me to some sort of cross examination at that moment. It was important for them to get as much information as possible from me in order to get more clues. We were informed that we had to be prepared for very serious complications during the the operation, such as severe bleeding, because my condition had already severely impaired blood clotting abilities. A scaary situation. I received some more examinations, some more blood was drawn for testing, and an ultrasound examination was conducted; docters feared that my liver was about to rupture, or even had already ruptured. I remained alert during this, but I had to calm myself in order not to panic, a feeling to which the much to high blood pressure contributed.

2:25 pm - Everything went quickly, but we thought it was important to inform parents in the Netherlands that we would receive "some assistance" that day to deliver our baby. Thanks to creative thinking of a nurse we could make the call (it was nearly impossible to get an outside line from where we were in the hospital, let alone a call to Europe). Erik called my parents, and I told them myself what was going to happen, I felt very strongly like telling this myself. I asked my mother to inform Erik's parents about the situation which she of course did. From that momemt on, that side of the ocean was waiting what was going to happen.

3:30 pm - Meanwhile Erik was being better informed than I. He was capable of posing additional questions, while I needed all of my concentration for other things, like being totally sick and trying to stay calm. I felt very miserable, also because I couldn't have any more ice chips: I was being prepared for the operation...

We knew at that time that there would be a cesarian section really soon. Funny enough we were relieved to have brought the hospital bag to the hospital "just in case", so we also had the camera ready. Erik had, besides getting information, something to do. Results can be found on the web side.

Continued: the delivery