I was in for the week that week. So, 37+5 to 38+5 I was in. And every day I was saying, “So, what are you going to do with me?” and they said, “We’re just going to monitor you.” I was like, “OK.” One of the consultants came round and he was like, “Most of the women in this hospital are because of pre-eclampsia, you know everybody on this ward right now, they’re only here because of pre-eclampsia,” and I was like, “Oh right OK,” and he’s like, “That’s what you’sve got,” and I know, you know I know [laughs]; I diagnosed that myself months, you know months ago, I know I’ve got pre-eclampsia. And he said, “Yeah, that’s pretty much all we can do to make sure you don’st do anything.” He was like, you know “We don’st want you going further than the bathroom; we just want you to stay still, don’st move and just wait to go into labour,” and I was like, “Oh right OK.” I had responded to lying still; my blood pressure came right down I think it was around a 133 it stayed high for a couple of days and then it came down to about a 133 and this was at 38+5, and he said, “You can go home if you want today.” I said, “OK yeah, I’ll go home now,” and I said, “Do I just continue bedrest?” He said, “Yeah, bed rest until you deliver.” Alright fine.

I was in hospital for two weeks again.

But during the two weeks’ time I was in and out of HDU. There was a point when they can’t control my blood pressure took me to HDU for one night. They kept an eye on me a bit more on HDU, there’s one to one, and then I think the next day blood pressure was stable, they decided me to decided for me to go back to the ward. So there’s a few scares that I had to go back down to HDU and thinking, ‘This is it, this is it.

But then blood pressure got controlled, went back to the ward , and then a couple of days later I had to go back down to HDU and yeah.

Mm. And what was the difference between the ward and HDU why are they different?

Ward is obviously it’s a bigger ward. There’s one midwife looks after six mums, whilst in HDU there’s one to one midwifery care.

OK. And so you would reach HDU and what would happen during that time?

It’ll be in one room I get connected to the a proper monitoring instead of they’re monitoring me every I’m all continuously being monitored. I’m continuously on CTG monitoring as well.

I went in at 26 weeks. I had what did they do? Urine test to see what was in there. They done blood pressure and they managed the baby’s movements and baby’s heartbeat. When I went in at 32 weeks they said my blood pressure was through the roof. At one point it went to 205 over 130. So, as soon as I went in it was steroids for the baby and then I had to take two lots of pills straight away. Blood pressure was being taken every two minutes that wasn’st bringing it down, so they tried something else and then there are a lot of pills. Again that wasn’st bringing it down so they tried IVs; I was just having bloods like look at my arms and it was just bruises all down my arms where they were just sticking stuff in, pulling blood out to try and find out try and make sure it was coming down.

And then again through all this baby was being monitored. Eventually they managed to get the IVs and it had come down, stayed stable overnight. Had another lot of steroids then for her and they were just like, “Look now you’sve had your steroids.” I wasn’st outputting any water; I had to drink 85 mls of water every hour. I was lucky to output 20 [mls]. So they knew my kidneys and everything else were, aren’t-, failing. And then they were like, “No, you need to get we need to have this baby out because although your blood pressure it’s not just that that’s the issue, it’s everything else that’s coming with it now as well.”

So the next morning, that was the panic time. Throughout the night they were taking my blood pressure and, because I was so anxious to go home, I kept checking as well but wasn’st coming down, at that point. It was still doing, it didn’st cause me much panic and I slept really soundly that night but they kept waking me to check my blood pressure, to put the monitor on the baby, everything. It was the following morning, after breakfast, when the doctors were doing the rounds, I had a female consultant with her entourage of her students and she said, We’sre not happy. How do you feel? And I explained that I feel fine. Have you had any pains whatsoever?’s And I did explain that I had a dull, aching pain and I’sd had it for a while, at that point, over two months I would say and I said, told the midwife about that and the GP, just a dull pain on my right rib, just underneath the breast area, the rib cage, on the right hand side, had that for a while and I did tell her about that but, other than that, there is nothing. I felt well and she said, Well, the way your blood pressure is, I am, we are rather surprised that you actually feel well and able to walk. So, therefore, we’sd like to keep you in until your blood pressure returns to normal or we’sll have to do further tests as well before we can decide what the other options are. And I said to her, What other options? She said, We have to think about the baby and it’s not good for the baby for your blood pressure to be that high and for you to have that dull ache in your rib area, we’sre going to do some more tests just to find out what the problem there is and send you for a scan, the baby as well, to make sure it’s developing fine. So they sent me down to, the porter came, they took me to the scan area. It was fine. The baby was fine.

So, I remember being woken up, well having blood pressure tested every four hours I think.

OK

And then in the mornings having-, going on the trace monitoring for about an hour. And then quite often blood-, had blood samples taken in the morning quite often.

And often saw doctors or the consultants would come round then as well. And then obviously it was sort of lunch-time, and then it seemed to be quieter in the afternoon and visitors were allowed in in the afternoon so, and again, you know it was just the regular monitoring really.

I remember being very tired because obviously the later stage of the pregnancy you don’st sleep brilliantly, and then because you’re being woken up all the time, yeh. I remember thinking, ‘I’m pretty shattered and I haven’st even had the baby yet,’ and yeah so, yeah I mean it-, being in hospital is horrible anyway because the food’s not great and your being given the same food all the time and if you don’st feel very well it’s-, yeah it’s, it’s difficult but.

I also at one point had to have a catheter much to my annoyance. Because I wasbasically as I got in there I was probably drinking about six litres a day and I was probably going to the toilet at least every hour.

I was weeing a heck of a lot. So, Iwe the registrar and I we know each other and we had a bit of a kind of, “Oh I don’st want it in.” “Well, you need to have it in.” Because I was on like the high dependency they needed to keep monitoring my fluid input and output. So I did have it in for one night but the next night I lost all kind of I think because I’d been awake, I had this headache, I had to hold on to this monitor, I had this horrible burning in my arm, and a catheter, again never realised the pain but that for me was so uncomfortable.

Every time you moved you felt like your whole bladder was just being tugged. So, they did take it out and I had to get up every hour and go for a wee, which I was very happy to do. And the other thing was they then reducedI was only allowed to have 80 mls of water an hour. So, for someone thatin pregnancy my craving was ice and water, so to only have 80 mls it doesn’st sound that bad, but when you’re drinking so much, like your whole mouth is like, you know and that wasn’st very pleasant.

And just give us an idea about how much 80 mls an hour is.

I think it was something like that in the cup.

Yeah

It was likeit was like a swill on the mouth. And some hours I would just be almost in tears because I just needed something to wet my mouth because I was just so dry yeah.