Ethan's fast asleep and so I thought that I would post my birth story (although it happened quite a while ago now!) before I start to forget bits of it. Apologies in advance because it is long and a bit traumatic.
Monday 23 May was the start of my final week at work before having 2 weeks holiday and then starting my maternity leave on my due date of 13 June. That morning I had a MW appointment first thing at home so that she could check where the baby was going to be sleeping, my birth plan etc.
Since the previous Tuesday (36 weeks + 1) I had been having some rib pain and back ache between the shoulder blades. I assumed that this was due to being in the final month of my pregnancy and that the baby was just growing and everything was getting squashed. I had had a really busy week at work and had been working some long hours and so I put the back ache down to a bit of stress and sitting in one position at my computer for too long. The pain had been quite bad even with paracetemol. Sunday 22 May was my birthday and friends and family had been popping in all day for cake and during the early evening I had to leave them with DH and go to bed with a hot water battle because the pain was getting too much.
At 9.30am the MW arrived. As soon as she asked how I was I started crying and told her about the pain. She agreed with me that it was probably a combination of the baby growing and a bit of stress and said that I could see my GP to get some stronger painkillers if I couldn't manage on just the paracetemol. Then we took some time to go through my birth plan (as active a labour as possible, minimal intervention and drugs, all taking place in the MLU). At around 10am we went upstairs to see where the baby would be sleeping and she tested my urine sample. She paused and told me that I had a result of +2 and that this was really high and she was going to need to double check the procedure for what action she needed to take next. She said that before she did this she might as well check my blood pressure too and when she took that she just said that she needed to call the hospital straight away. At the time she didn't tell me what my BP was but my GP has since told me that it was dangerously high (I can't remember the numbers - I'm a bit rubbish with BP). The maternity wing told her that I needed to come straight in and that I had to come in an ambulance, not in anyone's car. My MW told me to ring DH while she called and ambulance.
I was sobbing from the minute she took my BP because I knew that the signs were that it was pre-eclampsia. When I called DH all I could say was that I had to go to hospital and that he needed to come home straight away and then just started sobbing again. My MW was brilliant, very calm through everything. She kept saying that the hospital would probably just check me out and send me home again but that there was a small chance that I might be having my baby today and so I should take my hospital bag with me (she has since told me that she knew there was no chance of me being sent home before I had the baby but she was trying to keep me calm). I was worried that I hadn't finished packing my hospital bag but all of the things I hadn't put in were the nice to have things for labour (CDs, TENs machine etc). The MW told me not to bother about those things so I just chucked in a few more clothes and was all packed within a couple of minutes.
A first response paramedic arrived in a car and had to take my BP and then tried to get some blood samples and put a canular in. He couldn't do either because he couldn't get to any of my veins. This was really unpleasant - I don't deal with blood tests or even BP checks very well, I feel very ill and had only ever had 2 blood tests before this day (both since I became pregnant) and so I was sobbing throughout this.
DH and the ambulance arrived at about the same time. My MW told me that DH was not allowed to drive me to the hospital because my BP was so high they were worried that I would have a fit during the journey and so I had to be in the ambulance. DH had to drive himself and I went in the ambulance with the two paramedics who managed to get a canular in before we started driving (with blue lights and sirens!) In the rush I forgot my maternity notes and so my MW had to bring them out from the house to the ambulance.
When I arrived at hospital I was taken to the High Dependency Unit and was immediately had a belt put round me so that they could monitor the baby and started taking blood samples. DH arrived a few minutes after me. There were several MWs and doctors in my cubicle and they told that I had pre-eclampsia but that they also thought that I might have something called HELLP syndrome and that they needed to do blood tests to confirm this. I could hear one of the doctors on the phone to the lab on the other side of the ward shouting my name and telling the lab that they needed to get the results back really urgently. In the meantime a MW helped me get all of my clothes off and get into a hospital gown and then put a catheter in. They told me that my baby would definitely be delivered that day, but the question was how best to do it. Normally they would go for CS but if I had HELLP syndrome one of the symptoms is having very low platelet levels which would mean that I would have trouble clotting my blood after the operation and so a CS could end up being a more dangerous option for me. One of the doctors did an internal examination to see if there was any chance of inducing me. This was really painful and I screamed and cried through the whole thing. The result of examination was that I had an "unfavourable cervix" and so they thought that if they tried to induce me it might take several days. They decided that based on the results of the baby monitoring and the extent of my pre-eclampsia this was was time which we didn't have.
The blood tests came back showing that I had HELLP and that my platelets were 48 (I don't know what they should be normally but the doctor was happy when they got up to 190 a few days later and my googling has told me that having platelets under 50 put me in the most severe category of HELLP). It turned out that the rib pain which I had been having was also part of the HELLP syndrome and was my liver not working properly. I hadn't had any of the normal PE symptoms of headaches / swelling. To be able to have the CS (because induction wasn't an option) I had to be given a transfusion to increase my platelet levels.
A doctor brought me the CS consent form to sign and I remember him reading out the potential complications including hysterectomy and I remember thinking that that was a better option than dying from PE 
.
They then wheeled me round to theatre. They had to give me a general anaesthetic (I don't remember discussing other options with anyone so I imagine that they had to do this because they had decided that they needed to operate quickly). Ethan was born at 12.49pm, less than 3 hours after my CMW had checked my urine and BP. He was 4lb 6oz. He was so small because the PE had stopped him from growing for the previous couple of weeks.
I can't remember much of the rest of the day because I was in such a haze from the anaesthetic. DH has told me that they brought Ethan out to him really fast, within 15 mins of me being taken to theatre (in fact this was so quick that DH had gone to the canteen to grab a sandwich and a MW was waiting with Ethan in the ward for him when he got back!) and so he had plenty of time for lots of cuddles. I can remember coming round from the anaesthetic a couple of times. One time I remember shouting that I was absolutely knackered because I hadn't finished work and so hadn't had any of the annual leave that I had been looking forward to and that all of this happened too early. I also remember feeling like I needed to be sick (a side effect from the anaesthetic) but not wanting to because I knew that it would hurt my stomach muscles.
I didn't wake up properly until 6am the following morning. The MWs had fed ethan with formula overnight (with our consent). One of MWs saw that I had woken up and so she brought me some tea and toast and then put Ethan on my chest under my hospital gown so that I could have my first proper cuddle with him. 
We ended up staying on the High Dependency Unit for 3 days which was not much fun. It's like an A&E dept for maternity cases and so there are often emergencies coming in through the day and night and so it is very noisy and the lights don't normally get turned down so it is very difficult to sleep. Also, all of the patients are hooked up machine to monitor them constantly including a BP cuff which automatically inflated every hour 24 hours a day which I hated. After that we got moved to a private room in the normal post natal ward where we stayed for another 6 days while Ethan got his feeding sorted, his weight up and became able to maintain his own body temperature and while I got my platelet levels up and my BP under control.
Everything is good now, Ethan is now 5 weeks old and was 6lb when he was weighed last week. I am slowly coming off all of my BP medication, although my GP thinks that it might take 3 months to come off everything completely.
Obviously this wasn't the type of birth that I wanted and although I am happy that we are both safe and well and am very aware that not all PE and HELLP cases have such a happy outcome, I still feel that in a way I cheated by getting a baby without ever experiencing a contraction. I also feel that I have been cheated by not having a chance to have the labour which I had been preparing for so many months for. I almost feel that it's like a race which I have been training for for ages being called off at the last minute and then me not having the chance to prove to everyone that I can do it. The hospital have referred me for traumatic birth counselling and each time I talk about the experience it gets easier and I'm not crying every time any more. The positive thing (apart from having a beautiful baby of course!) is that now the doctors and MWs know that I am at risk of developing PE again in a future pregnancy, they will be monitoring me much more closely and giving me drugs throughout any future pregnancy so that they can reduce the chances of me getting it again, and if I do get it hopefully it will be spotted earlier and so delivery won't have to be quite as rushed as this time. All of the medical staff I have encountered have been brilliant.