How long did it take for the swelling to go down?

Well I had anti embolism stockings, very fetching, they were thigh high ones. I kept them on I think for four days, before I said, Can I have some other ones, because these are really horrible. So I got them changed. It took about, I suppose two weeks for it to go down completely, but the bruising took about six weeks, and I started getting bruising on the back of my legs as well, which was shocking and my GP said, If it starts to go purple then you need to let me know. And I thought, oh what shade of purple are you talking about, you know.

And the dosage got smaller and smaller each time until I came off it completely. I didn’st understand, actually, that I needed to do that. I thought, honestly, that I’sd have the baby and then could leave all the tablets behind me and things like that but I didn’st realise that there was a risk that if you just stopped them completely your blood pressure would go up again and that was a bit difficult because when you get up in the night and your blood pressure is a bit lower.

And then you maybe reach down for the baby in the moses basket, your head, you know, you kind of see stars and things like that but it was a bit of a necessary evil really. So with some consultation from the doctor, they kind of adjusted the dose and weaned me slightly quicker maybe so.

Okay

I think it was six to eight weeks.

And the biggest challenge we had was the section rather than anything else because obviously then that limits what you can do. So, I had two weeks off work, paternity and everything, so that got us to a point but you still need more mobility than you had in terms of being able to drive the car and everything.

But then Mairi walked down to the doctors from our old flat; down to the doctors in the snow because it was like the worst winter that we’ve ever had and pushing the pram to see about when she might be allowed and he said, “You’sve walked like a mile and a half down here pushing a pram; drive next time” you know. It was an empirical test for whether you’re capable of that, and that’ll do you sort of thing. So you know and then things started to ease off a little bit and but yeah it was good though.

So you must have been in hospital two weeks then

Two and a half weeks.

Two and a half. How did it feel then walking in through your front door?

Well, when I left the hospital I cried. I was incredibly, incredibly nervous. Just – I was actually very scared. Because I’d been there so long I’d become sort of institutionalised, really. And yeah, and then wonderful to be home but it, I had felt very secure there, and I’sd been there so long everyone knew my name, and you know, all of that. All the nurse, midwives would come in, “Oh hi, how’s [baby] doing this morning?” You know. So yeah, mixed emotions. I think, you know, a lot of my friends couldn’t wait to get out, because they’d hardly been there and were through the front door and it was all – I was actually very – and because of all the fuss, you know, the problems beforehand, and also with her afterwards, when she was unwell, my husband only had three days paternity leave, so that had gone, so we had well, he had half a day at home and then had to go back to work, so that was all a bit of a stress. I mean, I have a super-granny, my mum. So that was, she stepped in. But it wasn’t how we had – and I’m a real planner, I’m a – so it wasn’t how we had planned it. You know, we imagined that we’d have a few days at home on our own, and then my mother would come, and you know, that kind of thing, so.

After I was discharged from hospital I was in there every day seeing Imogen. And because it was a small maternity hospital it was just the bottom level was your pre-natal appointments and a triage system.

And I had to go in there every day and get checked. So, they would check my blood pressure, they would check my urine, they checked my stitches, they took the stitches out and I continued to go, oh weeks, weeks after because I was still on I was still on blood pressure tablets at that point as well. So I was under their care basically the whole time Imogen was in hospital. And then when I came out I was in the care of my GP.

The liver just for some reason I guess stopped working and processing and so build up of junk in there I guess, and so just taking time to get all those levels back down. That is as good as my understanding is, because no one really said anything more, other than, your liver functions off. That was about much detail as the liver got.

I mean how do, how are they measuring its recovery?

Blood tests.

Okay.

Yes.

And how regular are those?

They’sre not any more. The first four weeks after I was going twice a week initially to have my bloods done and then it dropped sort of down to once a week and then once it hit normal levels, they were like, Okay, you’sre fine now. Off you go.

They wanted it to be managed by my local maternity unit, so they got in touch with my local maternity unit and they tried to arrange this discharge, and they were like, “We’ll get the midwife to come and see you.” Generally I think itthe discharge was quite smooth but the only problem was, because it was a Sunday evening and they have to give me lots of medication, and try and get the pharmacist available and then get me all the medication that they needed, because there was blood pressure medication in there. There was something for clotting as well, so injections and they were like, “Oh you need to give yourself-, and like you need to give them to yourself,” and I thought, ‘I can’t put injections in myself,’ so then they had to find someone to find who could explain to my husband how he needed to give me the injections and things like that. Then they said to me, you know, “It’s up to you but you can kind of check your blood pressure at home,” and actually my blood pressure monitor’s actually in the corner there. And they were like, “The midwife will come and see you and if she doesn’st, you need to ring this number,” and to be fair the midwife came when they said she would come. And we had a really lovely midwife for the first week, and she was really, really kind and helpful and stuff. The next week she was off, I think she’d taken some annual leave or whatever, and a midwife came and she clearly hadn’st read my notes because she walked in and she said, “Congratulations.” And we didn’st say anything to her; we didn’st say, you know, “Why are you saying?” We didn’st confront her about it or anything like this, and then I kind of said, “I’m just having my blood pressure checked because I had pre-eclampsia and we lost our baby,” and she didn’st acknowledge that she said it either. We just kind of tried to ignore it as much as we could. And she checked my blood pressure and she came back for a couple of days, and then someone else came to check up on me and my blood pressure at that point had it was about two weeks after, had gone back to normal but I was still on the medication, and they said, “Go back to your GP after you’sve finished your medication for a month and then your GP can decide.” And at that point, after about two weeks, after that then I went to see my GP and my GP was happy with my blood pressure and stuff and said, “I’ve got no concerns,” so you know she was quite happy to take me off the medication.

Afterwards I was on two lots of medicine labetalol and nifedipine. While I was still in hospitalI was in hospital for ninewell like nine days after having her because they just couldn’st control my blood pressure. One minute they’re like, “Yes we’ve got it sorted,” and then all of a sudden it was, “No, it’s right back up to a hundred and sixty and it needs to be” I was bed-bound, so eventually they found the two, although apparently they’re quite similar; they had to be taken together, so I was on very high dosage of them. When I went to the pharmacy to go and pick them up the guy; the pharmacist actually come over to me and said, “Why are you on tablets this high; we don’st give these to people unless they’re reallythey’re much older?” Once I’d explained to him I had pre-eclampsia he said, “Right that’s fine.” So I was on them, I think for about six months and I was slowly being weaned off them. I was on the highest dosage for eight weeks and then slowly they were dropping the one; keeping the one the same and I had to have weekly appointments with my GP just to make sure. When I first got discharged from hospital, for a week afterwards I was having daily blood pressure monitoring up there just to make sure it was they had controlled it and it wasn’st still laying there.

Yeah, so there was a whole we had, a month afterwards I think where I was home for two days, and then one night I had a banging headache all night, and I thought maybe it’s the hormones or not. And I had a blood pressure monitor at home; again something that was not a good thing; and I took my blood pressure one morning; that morning and it was really high it was a hundred and eighty over something. I remember my dear friend, this midwife, and she was like, “Take your tablets, give it an hour.” OK. Take it again, it was still high and I just didn’st feel right. So, it was a Saturday again, so she took me down the hospital where this time it was much more busy and I it was different to say the week before when I’d been there having the baby; it was different; different staff. I was really panicking about these blood pressure and that was obviously bringing it up again. Because what had happened actually, sorry, in hospital is a registrar had come up to me a few days in talking about my blood pressure, and she said to me that pre-eclampsia can sometimes stay or come back after four or five days after delivery. But said something that always stuck, and she said, up to six weeks after. Now, that was it, it was stuck in my head. I virtually counted down that six weeks in my head, and it might have just I don’st even know to this day even if it’s true or not, but itI was constantly anxious, panicking thinking I was going to die; didn’st want to leave her. It really really weird like questioning what my mortality all the time. I ended up in hospital; they started me on Ramipril this time, and that’s when they said, “But if you have ramipril you can’t breastfeed at all,” because at that time I was then expressing because I couldn’st breastfeed so there was no breast milk at all. And there was the consultant that turned up the Monday really cross with someone’s decision for doing that. But that point I didn’st mind. It was kind of like breastfeeding was one element in everything that we didn’st need, and my husband was quite you know let’s get rid of this breastfeeding bottles, let’s stick with this because this is an added element that we need to get rid of, so we got rid of breastfeeding, bang, out the way.

It was almost the self-assurance as well to be able to do it and know, keep an eye on myself while I was at home because you, especially when you when you stay, I stayed in hospital for four or five days and you’sre so tested so rigorously there, suddenly you come out and you’sre doing your own medication yourself and it was just another self-assurance really to. See that your blood pressure is doing okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

Because I know, on the last day of being in hospital, I was meant to go home and they, suddenly my blood pressure shot up again and it was just, they don’st know why.

Okay.

But then that did drop back down but it was just the, almost again, just to check it yourself.