bautistaM

My name is Mary Ann and I am 36. I have 3 boys ages 10, 8 and 5 that I homeschool and a baby girl 8 mos. Katie was born July 2, 2003.

Now that I think back, I may have had symptoms and not known it. I just figured that I was older than my other pregnancies. I was tired, but who isn't. My blood pressure during the pregnancy was high normal, which was very high for me. The other symptom I had was during the last month or so I would wheeze, but only when laying down. I asked my doc & he thought it was just allergies. The other thing was that my feet got very swollen. That had never happened in my previous pregnancies, but I guessed that I got lucky all those other times.

When I went into labor, things progressed very slowly (which wasn't unusual) but I had a much harder time. I got an epidural and pitocin and things progressed. When I was time to push I had a really hard time, I was surprised because for the year previous I had been working out and was stronger than I ever had been, so why was I having such a hard time? Again I came back to the age thing.

Katie was born, perfect and healthy and I stayed in hospital for 2 days. I was noticing that when I got up and walked around that I was short of breath and had some pressure under my rib cage, but just thought that I had done some really hard work having her & maybe strained some muscles. I don't remember if I had mentioned that to anyone at the time.

When we got out of the hospital, I was surprised that I wasn't bouncing back like I had from all my other pregnancies. I didn't think 5 years should have made such a difference in my tolerance and energy level. The pressure in my rib cage was becoming pain and sometimes I was very short of breath, but it would go away. I also began having trouble breathing while lying down and I couldn't fall asleep. I told my mother & husband about the symptoms and they were concerned. I called my midwife and she didn't know what to think other than I must have pulled a muscle. My chiropractor thought it was a bad reaction to the epidural. As the pain got worse I went in to the midwife who conferred with the ob and decided it was my gall bladder. They couldn't give me meds because I was nursing. At a family gathering on a Sunday my breathing was so bad that we left our boys with my sister & went to urgent care. The doc there agreed with the gall bladder diagnosis, he gave me antib!

iotics and sent me home. A few days later my dh took the boys to their swim team party & I stayed home with the baby. I became so sob that I was getting scared, I felt like I couldnt get any air in my lungs. I called dh & told him to get home, that I needed to get to the emergency room. A couple of minutes later I was so scared, my lips were starting to turn blue and I was afraid I would pass out holding my dd. I called 911 and then prayed that I wouldnt pass out before they got there. My husband got home before they left with me for the hospital and he got babysitters for our kids and then met me at the hospital.

After 2 days of poking and prodding they finally diagnosed me with CHF and PPCM. I came home able to lie down again after at least a week of not being able to. I have had a very difficult time finding information on my disease and what it means to me and my activity level as the homeschooling mom of 4. I am feeling so much better now (8 mos. later), my EF has improved a little and I FINALLY found someone in the cardiologist group that I like and trust (why is that so hard?!)

This site has been a Godsend for me. God bless all of you.