Postpartum

In the Spring of 2013, I was expecting my first children, twin girls! My twins arrived at just 30 weeks and were both in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). About 2-3 weeks after their birth, I noticed some discoloration on my leg, and it felt a little weak. I went to urgent care, where…

I had my son via C-section in April 2023. During my pregnancy, doctors said my leg pain was sciatica. After having my son, I was having severe headaches, and the pain medicine I was given didn’t help. A week later, I had three seizures. After the first seizure, we went to a local hospital. They…

I had given birth via C-section, and my daughter was sent to the neonatal intensive care unit at a different hospital. My legs were swollen for a couple of days after giving birth, but I figured it was normal since they pumped me with so many fluids when I was in labor and delivery. Six…

I was first blindsided by deep vein thrombosis after the birth of my second child in 1993. Shortly after she was born, I remember stumbling on the steps on my way upstairs after preparing a middle-of-the-night bottle. I thought I had pulled a muscle, and the growing pain in my leg didn’t alarm me. But…

I was 23 years old and 40 weeks into a high-risk pregnancy. I was considered high risk because of a cyst cutting the circulation off to my right ovary, and I also had endometriosis. I had a C-section on August 17, 2020. After the surgery, I returned to my hospital room and cuddled up with…

I’ve experienced deep vein thrombosis twice in my life so far. In 2010, when I was six weeks postpartum, I had cramps in my calf that lasted for three days, but I had no discoloration or swelling. I called my doctor and they had me come in “just in case.” An ultrasound of my right…

I’m 47 years old and grateful to be alive. This is because I experienced pulmonary emboli (PE) on three separate occasions.  About six weeks after giving birth to my second son, I began to feel tired and thought I was coming down with a cold. My mother suggested that I go to the emergency room…

My son was stillborn on March 2, 2023. Almost immediately after, I started having chest pains, which I attributed to stress from my son dying. My doctor prescribed anxiety medicine and I was discharged that day.   However, for the next eight days, I experienced throbbing chest pain as if the world was sitting on my…

I was 22 and two weeks postpartum after having a complicated delivery of my first and only baby. I began having intense back pain when breathing or moving, so I contacted my midwives, OB/GYN, and PCP. They all told me that it was a pulled muscle and prescribed muscle relaxers.    I took one dose and…

A few days after delivering my second child in February 2021, I found myself back in the hospital with stomach pain and a fever. A CT scan revealed a massive blood clot in my inferior vena cava, the largest vein in the abdomen that collects unoxygenated blood from the lower body and brings it to…