Birth Story

My due date was October 11th and the week before I was diagnosed with covid. Being fully vaccinated, my symptoms were short lived, and relatively mild compared to some other cases I’ve read. I went in for an appointment the day I was released from isolation, they hooked me up to the fetal monitor to evaluate baby and swept my membranes. They forgot to take my blood pressure as they were running behind, I didn’t think anything of it as I’ve had great blood pressure my entire pregnancy and wasn’t feeling ill. Labor started about 5 hours labor with active labor kicking in at 12 hours after the membrane sweep. At 3 am we headed to the hospital. They immediately admitted me and discovered that my blood pressure was dangerously high and I was at risk of a seizure or stroke. This prompted them to start magnesium which in turn slowed my labor and deemed me bed ridden. My birth plan was to go naturally with pain management being positioning and the birthing tub-once I was bed ridden, I decided on the epidural. I got an epidural with my first and passed out immediately afterward, it took them a little bit to bring my pressure back up and this scared me into not wanting another epidural but figured if I couldn’t follow my birth plan and had to stay in bed that I may as well go for another one. The anesthesiologist was hopeful that since my blood pressure was so high already, that the epidural wouldn’t cause my pressures to drop too low. At first I felt great, but after 20-30 minutes I started having an immense heartburn feeling in the center of my chest. I started feeling faint and they ended up calling a code to get some help. After about 15 minutes my pressures started to level out and the anesthesiologist decided to lower the drip from 10-8 which helped and I started getting back to normal. At this point, my labor pretty much stopped and they decided to start pitocin. About 30 minutes later I started pushing and after 26 minutes, I welcomed my son in to the world. Since the epidural was lowered, I could feel a lot of the pain, it was unpleasant but I actually didn’t tear because I could feel when to push and when to relax. I started vomiting after having him from the magnesium and if you’ve ever had to have it, you know that you’re basically a zombie. I was on it for about 36 hours and felt horrible the entire time. When they finally stopped it, I started getting back to myself. It was determined that my blood pressure was so high because of COVID. And while my reaction to the epidural and magnesium was unplanned and somewhat traumatic, I am glad to be alive and well with my newborn son.

Long story short: always make sure they take your blood pressure, and while having a birth plan is necessary, be prepared to deviate from it in the event of emergency.