Monday, October 15th, 2018

My gynecologist, Dr. Sara Coca, has been with me since I was in my early 20’s and she’s the best. She delivered my daughter, my nieces and nephews, and all my cousin’s children. We like to keep it in the family. I swear she saved my life after I had Hayden. I developed postpartum pre-eclampsia after I delivered. It’s pretty dangerous and rare. It’s when you develop high blood pressure and it can affect your organs and cause serious problems. I had already been discharged after my C-section and it was days later that the symptoms got really bad. My head felt like it was going to explode and I was taking so many pain meds to try to make the pain go away. I remember I could barely hold Hayden I was in so much pain. As a first-time mom, I just thought this was part of the recovery. Finally, after two days of this I called Dr. Coca. Ironically, I wasn’t calling to complain, I was calling to see if it was okay that I was taking Motrin while I was breastfeeding. I swear she could hear the pain in my voice because she immediately had my husband bring me into her office. He brought me quickly and within minutes she had the nurses monitoring my blood pressure. The nurse calmly took my husband out of the room, explained to him that he needed to bring me to Stamford Hospital’s Maternity Unit right away. She said that the doctors would be waiting for me and that I would be fine. Sure enough, they were right; the team was waiting for me to arrive and in a blink of an eye I was back in a hospital bed. It felt strange to be back at the hospital without a baby. I remember feeling so scared but everyone at Stamford Hospital was kind, understanding, and most importantly, incredibly knowledgeable. I received medication and they fixed me right up with round the clock care. They helped me pump my own breast milk while I was hospitalized, and allowed my baby to join me so I wouldn’t miss those important few first days, and two days later I was discharged with a clean bill of health. I will never forget how scary those days were but I also will never forget how professional and kind the medical team at Stamford Hospital was. Now that I’m getting ready to deliver again in a few weeks, my Stamford Hospital team is well aware of my past medical issues and are prepared to treat me again if need be. Fingers crossed that I won’t develop the complication again but if I do, I know that Dr. Coca and the doctors and nurses at Stamford Hospital will be ready.