Anyone else with this experience?

Hey mamas!

I’m currently in week 34.

Since Mid February I’ve experienced near fainting at work, so bad I actually passed out then and there one time. We went to the OB Emergency room afterwards and they told me it’s probably my low iron and I need to wear compression socks.

So I went back to work anxious about it happening again but it was mostly fine.

A week after that I had my routine prenatal appointment and my blood pressure was all of a sudden really high and my OB was worried. They checked my labs and there was no protein in my urine and my blood looked okay too.

They asked me to come back in the next morning to have it checked again and it was high again. They put me on a remote blood pressure monitoring program that is linked to nurses and doctors 24/7.

Those have sent me to the ER several times because my readings were high at work, where they would just monitor me for hours and my blood pressure being alright after laying in a bed.

The third time I told them that I’ve noticed my pressure spiking really bad when I’m at work. I am a pharmacy tech and usually work 9 hours per day. We don’t even have a chair at work and often cannot take our breaks as we should.

Work got pretty rough for me, with a lot of Braxton Hicks, pelvic pressure and back pain.

They put me on a slow release nifedipine which didn’t do anything and not even a week later I was back at the ER because of a reading of 180/130.

Doctors put me on labetalol and the blood pressure finally went down. So much, that the next day at work I passed out with a blood pressure of 70/50. I got scared to take labetalol the next day and sure enough it happened again and it would drop really low again.

I was now monitoring my blood pressure very very very closely since it was all over the place and got told to only take half the dose of labetalol when it’s high.

Yesterday at work I felt really really dizzy and sure enough it was at 82/61 even tho I didn’t take any medication. I sat down and noticed a really strong headache that wouldn’t go away until today and I started throwing up A LOT at work.

They sent me home and I got concerned for preeclampsia since headaches and vomiting are a possible sign.

On the way to the hospital I threw up for about 20mins non stop, all over me and the car seats which was super gross. Naturally my blood pressure was normal again after around 1 hour of laying in the hospital bed.

My labs this time showed low electrolytes, normal platelets count but quite some protein in my urine. There has never been any protein in my urine and now it’s at 261. Apparently 300 is when they are talking about preeclampsia. The growth scan last week showed our little girl is small and measuring behind.

When I put all of that together I’m having:

- uncontrollable blood pressure

- a sudden shift in electrolytes

- slow growth in fetus

- headaches and vomiting

- protein in urine

And doctors tell me it’s fine and probably just a stomach bug. I’m really frustrated with that, my intuition is strongly saying something needs to change and isn’t right and I don’t feel heard at all by my care team.

I spoke to my manager today, since I really feel like work is the biggest change I can make, to cut my hours to 4 per day. This sucks financially and I feel somewhat ashamed about it, but I’m so scared about my baby.

Has anyone had a similar experience with blood pressure in the 3rd trimester? Also I really appreciate everyone that actually read until all of that 😄