The trauma of an unexpected pre-term birth experience alone is enough to make you say “no way, never again” to another child. Moreover, if the next pregnancy could lead to preeclampsia yet again and another spell in the NICU for your little baby, its quite tough to find courage to want to try again.
If you have not read my other blog, where I talked about the signs of preeclampsia then you can do a little comparison and tell me what you think.
In which one of the pregnancy pictures below do you think I had preeclampsia?
A) B) or Both?
If it isn’t obvious, it’s B!! A happy and healthy pregnancy that went full term without preeclampsia! So, if you were wondering if you can avoid preeclampsia, you absolutely can!
We wasted no time in our household because I literally had my second son straight after his brother. Both of my boys are currently 3 years old, and the only difference between them is one is a mama’s boy while the other is infatuated with his dad.
Fear will always hold us back and I hate to think there’s a woman out there who wants another baby but, because of a turbulent bad birth experience, is too scared to have another one.
I was scared too, don’t get me wrong, in fact I was terrified because after I gave birth it took me a very long time to recover. I was admitted in the hospital for days after I gave birth, but even after I was discharged was on the highest dose of medication to stabilise me from blood pressure.
According to www.sciencedirect.com “Recurrent preeclampsia occurs in 10–15 % of pregnancies, although higher rates have also been reported “, however www. preeclampsia.com done their own research and concluded “Research suggests the risk of having preeclampsia again is approximately 20%”. These findings were based on factors such as 1) If you had preeclampsia before 2) What your medical history was with high blood pressure/diabetes 3) Family history of preeclampsia 4) Multiple Gestation 5) If it your first pregnancy.
Based on my own personal circumstances, it was not looking good because instantly two factors had been ticked. Then there’s all that over thinking we do when we are in a panic. I took the highest percentage from those stats and multiplied it by each factor, so even though the facts have clearly said, around 10-20%, and 20% being on the higher scale, I read that as it will be 40% chance since 1) it was my first pregnancy 2) I had it for my first birth.
With experiences, no matter how hard they are, you only learn and grow stronger. What was different this time for me was I paid attention to little things, ate a lot healthier and slowed down to pay attention to my body and what was going on with my baby.
The medical professionals looking after me throughout my pregnancy had advised that this second pregnancy could be high-risk from the early stages. I am so thankful for such a fantastic General Practitioner and nurses who helped me and made this experience so much easier. You need a clear mind and a strong supportive system behind you, it makes the whole experience less daunting.
My doctor was able to talk me through understanding what a high-risk pregnancy is, what help is available to me including any extra medical appointments/tests during my pregnancy and how to take care of myself (biggest tip being avoid stress!).
Though she did not tell me about what to do in the case of another preemie, I already had first-hand experience from my firstborn. I really enjoyed the experience of my second pregnancy, this time round ticking off the milestones through all nine months of pregnancy and cuddling my full-term baby with no scares in between.
Though its something that COULD happen again, don’t dwell on what could go wrong and if you will develop preeclampsia again. Instead, have hope, have faith that this time it will be perfect.
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