Precious Families
Testimonial
by Susie Noonan
My name is Susie Noonan and I feature in Handle With Care, a new Australian health book about high-risk pregnancy.
It is hard to believe, staring at my three gorgeous children, that I was told that I would not be having any more children, following the birth of our eldest daughter, Sarah.
I had had a normal pregnancy, and with three older sisters who also had normal pregnancies and births, I believed that it would all be smooth sailing.
Unfortunately, more for my poor husband, Glen, Sarah’s birth was nothing close to smooth sailing. All mothers are routinely tested for pre-eclampsia during their pregnancy, well, I developed the next stage – that is full blown eclampsia as well as suffering an eclamptic fit.
For all of you who are unaware of what eclampsia is – that’s one of the ways women used to die during labour as recently as a generation ago. Somewhat rarely, my body developed (for want of a better term) a toxic reaction to being pregnant and giving birth, (which is eclampsia) and I actually fitted post delivery.
While most first time mums are attempting to breast feed for the first time and getting used to the fact that they are now “on call” 24 hours a day, I was being rushed to Monash Medical Centre, semi unconscious with my organs failing.
My blood pressure was 220/120, I was in renal failure, my liver shut down, there was fluid on my heart and my blood wasn’t clotting. As my coordination and balance were dreadful in the weeks following, there was also some concern that I had had a stroke.
Amazingly, with the help of modern medicine, within four days I was awake and beginning my recovery process. I remained in hospital for a further two weeks and I was fully recovered within six weeks of the birth. Really amazing.
After I woke up though, - so Sarah was around four days old – I only had one thought – could I have more children??? Despite Glen being aghast at the merest though of more children, I had always wanted at least two children and I couldn’t believe that my body of all things would be the factor that would deter me from this goal! That was when we were told the devastating news that I couldn’t have more children.
I still remember the look on my kidney specialist’s face when I asked him about more children – he just had this frozen look of horror and shock on his face.
Initially, the doctors were concerned that I would not make a full recovery from Sarah and therefore would not even consider putting my body through more strain in having another child.
However, as my body did recover fully within just six weeks, we were then able to resume the discussion about more children. The doctors investigated the disease quite strenuously, and we learned that eclampsia actually occurs later and with less severity in subsequent pregnancies.
As I had suffered eclampsia at 39 weeks, our correct thinking was that if I was induced at 38 weeks or earlier (if required) we could circumvent the disease from happening. I was monitored extremely closely second time around, and my obstetrician stayed by my bedside the whole time I was in labour to ensure that she would be on top of things should something go wrong. Which fortunately it didn’t!!
The internet, 11 years ago, was an infant compared with the dinosaur it is now, and my mother, once I started talking about having a second child, began madly searching for information about eclampsia. The only information she managed to find was from the eclampsia society webpage, which at the time, mainly dealt with the mortality and medical definitions of the disease. Certainly nothing that would inspire someone to go back for a second child!
Which is why I believe that Handle with Care is such a fabulous and helpful book! It would have been so wonderful to have been able to read about difficult pregnancies or births, and to know that despite the difficulties there were so many positive outcomes.
Reading that someone had survived eclampsia, to go on and have more children would have been so encouraging and beneficial to me.
Not everything is easy in life, but knowing that one awful experience will not necessarily define all experiences, would have been so wonderful to read about