Tiffany
My name is Tiffany Nicole and I'm 29 years old. In 2008 I was diagnosed with factor V leiden. I was diagnosed after delivering my son Travis Darnell at 25 weeks. My son was born 13 oz and he lived for 21 days. He over came so many obstacles during those days, but could not overcome a clot that formed out side of his heart. I held my son until he took his last breath and it was the most devastating thing that I have ever been through. I never imagined that I would be able to get over losing him. The night of his funeral I returned home and after I undressed I noticed that my leg was extremely swollen. Exhausted from the emotional day of burying my first born child I decided to take some pain medication and go to sleep. At 5am the next morning I was awaken by the pain. My leg was three times it's normal size. I was carried to the car and rushed to the ER.
I don't quite know what the triage nurse was thinking, but she placed me on the flex care side of the ER. Well once I undressed and the doctor came in and I was urgently rushed to the echo department where they performed a venous duplex. The results showed a DVT from my groin all the way down to my foot. My whole left leg was clotted and the clot was growing. I was of course admitted and placed on Heparin. Five days later the swelling did not reduce and it was decided to remove the clot surgically. This procedure typically takes one and a half hours, but my clot was so extreme and due to the fact of my fresh blood was clotting while he was removing the clot it took my surgeon four hours to remove the clot. I stayed in the hospital for another week and I just felt like dying. The pain and the grief of losing my son was too much to bare.
During the surgery a temporary IVC filter was placed, which had to be removed in 30 days. I made an appointment to have the filter removed and I was told to stop my Coumadin three days prior and start on Lovenox. The procedure went well, but they could not get me anticoagulated after the procedure. My left leg clotted again one week after the procedure while on Coumadin. I spent another six days in the hospital and my dose of Coumadin was 15mg alternating 20mg every other day. It took my doctors five months to get my INR to the appropriate level.
I was doing okay with the grief from losing my son with help of a grief counselor. To my surprise my Gynecologist and Hematologist informed me that it would be extremely hard for me to have another baby and they suggested that I avoid getting pregnant. Well that was not really an option for me. I decided to make an appointment to see my GYN and have a conversation with her regarding the possibilities. She advised me that if I was willing to take the risk to do it sooner rather than later because I was close to 30 and my age would start to play a factor in an already difficult situation.
I spoke with my hematologist and informed her that I wanted to try to get pregnant and she decided to stop my Coumadin and place me on Lovenox. I started taking Lovenox at the end of July of 2009. I was found out that I was pregnant in September of 2009. I had to find a high risk OB/GYN and a GYN to tag team my care for this pregnancy. I met with the high risk doctor first and he gave me his medical opinion and told me with my extreme case that it was his medical opinion for me to terminate my pregnancy, but he could tell just from looking at me that this was not an option at all. So he called all of my doctors and mapped out a plan of care for me.
It was a tough and difficult road for me. I was monitored twice a week during the beginning of my pregnancy. At 13 weeks I had a bleed from my placenta and was placed on bed rest for a week. Once I reached 25 weeks I was monitored three to four times a week and had stress testing twice a week. We reached 30 weeks and things started to get tough. The fluid around the baby was low even though I was drinking 70 -80oz of water a day. I also was developing preeclampsia.
On my next visit my blood pressure was high and they wanted to admitted me on April 16, 2010. I begged my doctor not to admitted me because I was moving on that day and my baby shower was the next day. Not to mention, I had my last class of the semester on that Sunday. He let me go home, but told me that I had to have my blood pressure checked twice a day and have two shots to help the baby's lungs. I survived the weekend and even went to work on Monday morning. I was scheduled to have an IVC filter placed on Tuesday morning to protect me after the C-section. My blood pressure went up again and I was admitted Tuesday afternoon after the IVC filter was placed. I was in the hospital for nine days being monitored and I delivered a healthy baby girl on April 29, 2010. She was 4lbs even. She spent five days in the NICU and came home one day before Mother's Day 2010. She is one year's old now and is beautiful and healthy.
Recently I have had some trouble with my INR and I decided to look up more information on my condition and I came across your website. I think it is absolutely wonder that you have this site to give information on this disorder. Reading the stories made me want to share mine with you.
Thank you for taking the time to put the information out there for people like me.
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