Postpartum

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…

When I was 37 weeks pregnant with my first child, I began experiencing a painful, pressurized cramping sensation in my upper thigh that was dismissed by three different OB/GYNs during my weekly appointments. They assured me it was just the baby putting pressure on nerves and ligaments in my pelvis.    However, at 17 days post-delivery…

I had my youngest son on December 26, 2019 via C-section. Recovery at home wasn’t too bad outside of the normal pain from having a baby.  But at about a month postpartum, I began to have chest pain and found it hard to do simple tasks. I ignored the pain and convinced myself it was…

In 2018, when I was 21 years old and just over three months postpartum, I was diagnosed with multiple pulmonary emboli (PE). I started having trouble breathing in the early evening which I assumed was just my asthma acting up. This continued all through the night and into the morning. I was using my asthma…

My blood clot story started at a time that should’ve been the happiest of our lives — we had just become a family of four! A few days after giving birth to our second child, I developed a severe headache.   Unfortunately, at the ER, I was misdiagnosed and treated for post-partum pre-eclampsia. After a few…

After giving birth to my daughter by emergency c-section due to preeclampsia, I started to feel very ill. My right leg was throbbing and my chest hurt. I followed up with the doctor on this, and a quick scan showed blood clots in my leg (deep vein thrombosis) and my chest (pulmonary embolism). I was…

I had my first blood clot when I was 24 years old after ACL reconstruction surgery — a risk factor for blood clots that I was unaware of. After my surgery, I noticed that my arm was warm, swollen, and red, all signs of blood clots. I knew something was off, and decided to go…