Barbie (15:10)
I told you we transferred to embryos. We lost that second embryo at seven or eight weeks very early on. My mom passed away when I was about six months pregnant from colon cancer. I had alongside my dad and siblings had been one of her caretakers. That was a really hard hit to our family. First baby, I wanted my mom to meet her. After that I'm about six months, going on seven months. This is when my blood pressure starts creeping up in office. I have a history of anxiety and depression and I always would blame things on my anxiety in office. My blood pressure was reading 140s over. I don't know what the bottom number was, but the bottom number was up a little bit too. They said, oh, that's a little high. And I was like, well, you know, I have anxiety and I probably just have white coat syndrome. White coat syndrome? You're scared of providers, you're scared of doctor's offices. That's my understanding. Your blood pressure might be up, your heart rate might be up, your vitals might read a little higher than usual. So I'd always brush it off. I want to drive the point home. I just watched my mom die. I was hell bent on I'm going to have a peaceful, wonderful birthday. I'm not in the mood for something else to go wrong. Two weeks later I come back in for my appointment and my weight starts really creeping up. Six, seven, eight pounds a week. I'm trying to give them reason of why I'm gaining weight and I'm like, well, you know, my mom just died. Maybe I had too much ice cream. I don't know. And I've been going through this and it's just stressful. I didn't even know what preeclampsia was. I know I'm a nurse, but I don't do preeclampsia with children. I didn't know that that was a complication. Origins wrote on August 22, 2019, which I have my calendar pulled up was a Thursday to September 5th of 2019, which is two weeks later. I gained eight pounds in two weeks. And according to the preeclampsia.org website, it says weight gain of more than three to five pounds in a week may be an indicator of preeclampsia. So already I was having the weight gain, almost 10 pounds in two weeks. I feel like someone should have sat down and said, hey, you've got weight gain, you've had some headaches, and your blood pressure in office isn't that great. Maybe we should get something checked. No. What we did instead was as the pregnancy progressed, it was send us what your blood pressure numbers are reading at home at night, I would make sure that I was as relaxed as possible. I would take my blood pressure and just pray it was a number that no one would get scared at. Most of the time, my blood pressure at home, it was 130s over 80s. And they were okay with that. And I was okay with it, too, because I didn't want anything to be wrong. They tell me, you should really take some cayenne pills and you need to drink celery water. I don't know if you've ever tasted celery water. It tastes like ass. But I was drinking that celery water like my life depended on it. My blood pressure at 34 weeks was creeping up. So it's 128 over 91. The top number wasn't horribly scary, but the bottom number is in the 90s. And then also at 34 weeks, they correlate the fundal height to the week pregnant. So at 34 weeks, I was 34 centimeters at the funnel height. I come back in the next week at 35 weeks. I'm measuring 34 weeks. I said, is that okay? And she said, yeah, it can Vary, you know, one or two. And I'm like, okay. I come in at 36 weeks. My blood pressure is 137 over 92. So it's going up even further. And I'm still measuring 34cm in the fundal height two weeks later. So that's showing you, like, there's been no uterine growth. If you're not going to do a sonogram, the next best thing you have is the fundal height. Sadie had not been growing in utero. I didn't know that was something to look for. So that's at 36 weeks. And then at 37 weeks, October 8th, I went in for an appointment. My blood pressure was 148 over 98, and my fundal height was 35 centimeters. I was 37 weeks pregnant, and she's measuring two weeks behind. Just to give context, I was 183 pounds. I'm five' ten when I got pregnant. Now, Origins wrote that the last weight they recorded for me on the 8th of October is £240. I delivered my daughter on October 13th at £250. We can do the math real quick. Had a total weight gain of 67 pounds. I just eat a normal diet. I was having, like, speckles in my vision. I wasn't losing vision. I did not have a massive migraine or anything like some people with preeclampsia do. But I did report I have some speckles and, like, a dull headache, but I take Tylenol for it, and it's okay. So I would tell them also at that appointment on that Tuesday, they drew blood work. I don't know when they got this blood work back, but it's important to note, at my appointment, she told me, you did spill a little bit of protein in your urine on your dipstick the other day. I remember her saying that. I was like, wait, what? I already have protein in my urine. There was already signs of preeclampsia six days before Sadie was born and four days before I went to the hospital. With preeclampsia, your organs are starting to. I don't know if the words deteriorate, fail, but my organs were not working at max capacity anymore. So I was just running around with these high values and high blood pressure. The next day, on Wednesday, October 9, I was at work, didn't feel well. I was having speckles in my vision. My head hurt. I just felt sick. I looked at one of my nurse friends and I said, I think I need to take my blood pressure. She took it, and immediately all the color leaves her face. She turns the machine to me, and it's reading 210 over 117. And that's very, very, very high. Like we're stroke levels at this point. I'm going, hell, no. There is no way this is happening to me. So I go into an empty patient room and I sit there and I call the Origins number picked up and I told her, and she was like, you need to get to the birthing center. Remember, I'm at work at a hospital. I come out and I say, why am I going to the birth center? They can check on me and they're all begging me. There's one charge nurse, she's crying and she's saying, barbie, please go to the emergency room. Please don't go to the birthing center. They get one of the anesthesiologists whose wife also had preeclampsia, and he's saying, barbie, please don't go to the birthing center. Please go straight to Baylor. This is a deadly disease that's happening right now. I'm just wanting to crawl out of my skin. I'm in complete denial. Nothing's wrong. I'm going to go. They're probably going to put me on bed rest and I'm still going to get to have a magical birthday because my providers have not told me anything's wrong yet. One of my nurse friends drives me to the birthing center. I've already called my husband and he's on the way. And they said, go in that birthing room and just lay on the bed and relax. Looking back, when I said my blood pressure is 210 over 117, they should have said, get your f to the emergency room. But they were like, smell some lavender. It will help relax you. I am fully trusting my provider. My husband gets there and he's like, we going to the emergency room? Like, no, everything's okay. We're just going to relax for now. And you see where my blood pressure goes. I remember them taking my blood pressure 3 or 4 times until it was 1 40s over 90 is what they got it back down to while I was laying there. Unbeknownst to me, my friend who has dropped me off is waiting in their little waiting room. And she told me that Amy was like, you need to leave. They're fine. And she's like, aren't y' all gonna take her to the emergency room? She's like, no, she's fine is what she kept telling her. And I didn't witness this, but this is what my friend told me. Kind of like basically didn't want her to witness anything, I guess they draw some more labs. I remember, like, she was standing at the foot of the bed in the downstairs birthing room. And I said, amy, I am not above a C section. If we need to go to the hospital, tell me. And I will go. I will freaking put my hand on a bible and tell you. She said to me, we're not there yet. There's no need to panic. And we were freaking there. I should have been the hospital. They sent me home from the birthing center again that Wednesday and said, here's a jug. Do a 24 hour urine on Thursday. The 10th, my husband took it to the lab or wherever he had to drop it off. The results for the 24 hour urine came back on Friday the 11th. We're at home eating dinner. I don't feel well. I was real swollen. I just really felt out of breath. Amy calls me Friday night and she said, hey, Barbie, we got your protein back. It's really high. So guess what? You're gonna have a baby tonight. And I didn't understand how high until I'm actually seeing the records now. So just to give context, according to the National Health Institute, the normal amount of protein in your urine for pregnancy is 150 milligrams to 300 milligrams. But mine for 24 hours was 1440 milligrams. I said, what? What do you mean? I'm having a baby tonight? Like, I'm not in labor. She's like, you need to go to the hospital. They know that you're coming. I said, okay. So I walk out to my husband. I said, hey, apparently I'm getting induced tonight. Then it's the panic because I didn't have a hospital backpack. I was 37 weeks pregnant. So we rush around and pack everything up, and we beeline it down to Baylor University Medical center in Dallas. I don't understand the gravity of the situation at the time. I walk into L and D, and there is a nurse pacing back and forth in the hall. I walk up to the desk, and it's like, hi, you know, I'm Barbie. I'm here checking in. And I look on her desk, and it has my name written, big letters. Barbie, Dash, Severe Preeclampsia. And I'm like, why does she have that written? What is going on? So the nurse that was pacing, she comes over to me. She's like, are you Barbie? And I'm like, yeah. She's like, come with me. I'm thinking in my mind she was just hanging out, waiting for me, not realizing that I was in grave danger at the time. They get me in the room, they're like, give us a urine sample, Changes this gown. So I do that. I sit on the bed, and all of a sudden, there's three or four nurses in the room. One's digging in my arm for an iv. One's trying to explain to me what they're doing. Another one's trying to place the catheter. I was put on magnesium, and on magnesium, you're pretty much confined to your bed. They were like, do you want an epidural? I was like, no, I don't want an epidural. And she's like, okay, I just need to understand, like, you're not going to be able to get up and move around or anything. We're starting you on Pitocin. I was like, okay. Still not fully understanding. The pitocin was kicking in. It was really pinching and cramping. It was not feeling great. I couldn't move, couldn't do much in the bed other than turn. And I looked at my husband, I was like, should I get epidural? We're both, like, shell shocked. Neither of us know exactly what's going on. I had my husband call Amy to ask her if it was okay if I got an epidural, to ask permission. And that's just how. I don't know another word for it other than being just brainwashed. You can't make these decisions without the permission of your midwife or your doula or. I felt like getting an epidural was admitting defeat and failure. Amy was just like, oh, my gosh, yes, she can do the epidural. You get in this mental state when you're in that environment of natural birth where it's like, epidural's bad. When it was a great. Needed intervention for me, my ob, she was the OB that Origins gave all their shit shows to. If things went south, they would call her. She's a wonderful doctor, very patient. She did not rush me to a C section. And later I asked her why, and she said, because you and the baby were still okay. She let me labor. There was some turning off the Pitocin and turning on. And Sadie, my daughter, who I was in labor with. Sadie absorbed some of the magnesium, so her heart rate was going up and down. Amy did call. She was texting with my husband, check on the status. I think she was actually staying at the birthing center when I was pushing. She did show up to support and be there when it was time to push. That's when things got scary. At this point, I had been in labor from Friday night to Sunday morning with little to no sleep. I pushed for an hour and a half. Sadie, they lost her heart rate. They had to get Sadie out then, so she had to give me an episiotomy. Sadie popped out. I remember she held Sadie up. There was no crying. My baby was completely limp and covered in meconium. And so she gets Sadie out of there. She passes them off to the NICU, and the NICU is working on her. She was 5 pounds, 3 ounces, the size of a 34 week old. I have a video of her laying on the little baby bassinet, and she's completely flaccid. Normally, you know, a baby is very flexed and their arms are drawn up, their knees are drawn up. Her cry is not even a cry. It's a whimper. Her Apgar at one minute was a tube. All she had for the first minute of her life was a heart rate. She wasn't breathing. Her skin color was not good. They had to use some respiratory resuscitation efforts to get her to start breathing and crying. At five minutes, her Apgar was a five. At five minutes of life, she had a little bit of skin color to her. Her muscle tone was really loose. She wasn't gripped up like a newborn normally is. She did recover at 10 minutes, and she was a nine, thankfully. Then all of a sudden, I just remember. I just hear this pouring sound, as if someone was pouring water on the floor. I'm like, what is that? I found out it was me. I was hemorrhaging because the placenta had abrupted from the wall. I delivered the placenta. I was just so curious. I was like, I want to see my placenta. Normally, a placenta is the size of, like, a large dinner plate, and mine was the size of a stove, small pancake. So it just shows you, like, how damaged and how unhealthy that placenta was. And that's why Sadie was born so small and weak. The placenta was very sick. After I had Sadie, it was maybe like an hour after, like, she was laying on my chest. And Dr. Fuller said, your cheeks are really red. She told the nurse, can you take her temperature? I have it here in the nurse's Note. It was 102.44. My temperature shot up real quick. She told the nurse to start whatever antibiotic in the charting. It says I had chorioamnioitis. And so that's an infection of the placenta and the amniotic fluid. I ended up with HELP syndrome. HELP syndrome happens after preeclampsia. HELP syndrome stands for hemolysis, which is breaking down of the red blood cells. Elevated liver enzymes, and low platelet count. Your red blood cells start breaking down, so your blood levels start to decrease. Your liver enzymes elevate, and then your platelets plummet. They go way down, so then you're at risk for bleeding out. And it was a hard recovery. I ended up needing antibiotics, and it was just rough. My OB came to me the next day. I was in the hospital. She sat on my bed and she grabbed my hand. And she was like, I'm so glad you're here, and I'm so glad Sadie's here. And she said, that was one of the top three scariest deliveries I've ever done. And she's been in a doctor for a very, very long time. She said, I had no clue that you had a prothrombin gene mutation. She hadn't been taking care of me. She's like, it is a miracle you didn't throw a clot on the table and for lack of better words, die. It's an utter miracle that you're both here and alive. There were signs in your lab work. Your liver enzymes were already elevated, your blood pressure was creeping up already, and your weight was creeping up the weeks prior to this happening, like you should have already been sent out of their care. They shouldn't have kept you as long as they did. Also, something my OB GYN circled. Origins was aware of my prothrombin gene mutation, and the prothrombin gene mutation I have can contribute to having a preeclampsia complication on top of being an IVF patient. That puts you at higher risk of preeclampsia and other complications. I also had a gene mutation that I didn't know puts you at a risk for preeclampsia. I don't see the medical knowledge background for them to be able to put those pieces together. Once I had her, I got home. We did a follow up with the OB doctor and then also with Origins because we had already paid for it, so we might as well do it. I want to say they were supposed to have two follow ups with Origins, and so the first follow up was two days after she was born. And I saw Amy. It was just basically like, how are you feeling? What's your blood pressure? The second follow up I was supposed to have with Origins, they had to push that one because someone was in labor at the birthing home at the time. My second follow up was with this certified nurse midwife, which I had never met in my past. And Amy was there. Something felt off or uncomfortable. It just felt like Amy was avoiding me at that point. She was with another couple, but I was like, I almost died in front of you, too. I just felt like she would have wanted to follow up with me, but she never did. The first year was really rough because she was born at 37 weeks, so technically about three weeks early. Four weeks later, she had E. Coli infection in her eyes that we had to get special eye drops for. She had, like, a Very slight brachial strain for the longest time. Her right arm, she wouldn't use it. That probably happened when I was trying to push her out. Her neck maybe went forward more than her shoulder, and it caused a little bit of a strain, but that resolved on its own. She was always behind on her milestones and making those. But she has developed, and she's a perfect little five year old now. I didn't understand the gravity of the situation until probably six months later. I really let myself think about what actually happened. And then I started to get mad. Then I started putting all the pieces together. I called a lawyer's office that was recommended to me by a friend. She literally said, barbie, in the state of Texas, it's almost impossible to sue a provider. I didn't go and print my whole chart when they were shutting down because I was pregnant with my third baby. I just didn't think about it. And So I called Dr. Fuller's office, and I asked them to print all my records. And they told me, we will print everything we have for you. The Origins usually doesn't send everything. They kind of send what they want. And I was like, that tracks. I really wanted to see some of the charting and notes that Amy wrote. So when I went to pick up my records at Dr. Fuller's office, I was like, hey, would Dr. Fuller mind requesting my records from Origins? Because now that they're closed, they want a physician's request. And they were like, oh, yeah, that's no problem. So right then and there, they had me sign a release form, and they sent it over to Origins from the time I left Dallas to come home, which is like 30 minutes. They email me, and they're like, hey, here's all they sent us. It's six pages. None of it's helpful. It's where I used to live, how many weeks pregnant I was, and then the labs that they had collected while I was there. And that's it. There's no charting. I'm just trying to see if there's anywhere on here that says, like, Amy Tate or. No, it's just, like, from Origins Park, Dallas, with their old phone number on there. I was there from March of 2019. And then they transferred care. October 11th of 2019.
