I haven't had a clot while pregnant, but I know there have been members of the board who have. Hopefully they'll chime in with some words of wisdom.

In the meantime, welcome! I'm glad you are here to join us!

The fatigue and pounding heart (sometimes a symptom of anxiety) are both super common after PEs and can go on for months. The best advice I can give you is to rest when you need to. And for a while, you will need to a lot! I could always tell when I overdid it during recovery because I wound up on the couch exhausted for a few days. And if you're going to have a newborn soon, I would focus on getting as much rest as possible now!

Also, a lot of us are haunted by the idea of the clots coming back or new clots forming. The anxiety does start to fade after a while but it can really be a struggle. After fighting it for about 3-4 months, I finally started therapy with therapist who specialized in people who had survived traumatic events. Very helpful. I also wound up getting on some anti-anxiety meds just to help me kind of regroup. Obviously, both personal choices ... but I felt my energy was better spent on healing than on wrestling with personal demons. Of course, if you're on Fragmin, the chances of reclotting are almost nil. Your body is working to dissolve those clots now ... not make them!

Hang in there! Read around on the board and be sure to post questions. We've been there and done that before!

I'm very sorry for what has happened, it's a terrible thing to suffer PE for anyone, and I think there must be some particular concerns and worries when it has happened while pregnant, like for instance your concern about the CT scan. I'm sorry I can't help much with the questions like that, because I was postpartum when I got my PE, so that part of things I didn't have to worry about. You didn't mention how far along you are in your pregnancy, I think the further along you are, the less potential for any problems for the baby. In any case, you did what you needed to do to keep yourself safe, and right now your safety means the baby's safety too. I do know that the lovenox is very safe to take while pregnant in terms of not hurting the baby at all. I would imagine your doctor would have already talked to you something about the delivery. Usually the delivery will be induced because there's a little bit of a process of changing over your anticoagulation, but I think other than induction (which is no big deal - I had that with my first baby for completely non-blood clot related issues) things are pretty normal, just probably the day after you deliver the doctors will start your anticoagulation again, possibly changing you over to taking coumadin rather than the injections. In case it's a concern for you, coumadin is safe to take while breastfeeding and doesn't get into your milk.

It's normal to experience some anxiety, but in terms of the clot returning, you really don't need to worry about that since you're being treated now. I would recommend that right now you get as much rest as you need, because it is true that it's hard to say how much rest you'll be able to get once the baby comes, a lot will just depend on the type of baby you have, whether he or she is a good sleeper or not - in any case, best to take advantage now and rest and recover as much as you can. Depending on how you're feeling, you might want to try to work on getting a good support system around you in case you need a little extra help after the baby comes. When you're feeling well enough now before the baby, I would recommend trying to just focus on the excitement of getting ready for him or her and try to not worry about what-ifs. We can easily make ourselves crazy with things like that, and usually such fears are never realized anyway, so all that worry was for nothing. I would recommend trying to just do things as normally as you can in the time until the baby comes and just be excited and happy like you probably felt prior to the PE.

I wish you and the baby all the best. Please PM me if I can help in any way, because my PE did come just a few weeks after my son was born, so if I can give you any assistance somehow in preparing for having a newborn while recovering from PE, I do know a lot about that.

Sarah

You've gotten very good advice here already. I will just add that I had a dvt and pe with my first pregnancy 30+ years ago. It happened around the 2nd month of pregnancy and I was hospitalized for a good part of the pregnancy. I went through a lot of testing, including lung scans, xrays, etc. I remember being in isolation because of the amount of radiation I had been given. I was very concerned about the health and safety of my baby because of the countless tests all though the pregnancy (that was so long ago when they did things entirely different) but my son was born on time, actually 8 days late, the delivery went fine and it was a normal delivery. When I went into labor I discontinued the heparin shots (that was before lovenox was available) and my son was very healthy. As a matter of fact, he was valedictorian of his high school class.

Best of luck to you and your baby!

Thanks everybody for your support and advice. I think I will try to find a therapist to talk to because I have already struggled with depression in the past and I feel like this PE and pregnancy and anxiety are a bad combination for me. I will also work on getting a support group around me and resting more. My dr said I could go back to work a few days after I was out of hospital, but I'm not sure that was the best thing for me. I work from home so at least I don't have to commute, and I do have the kind of job that's flexible enough to let me nap occasionally. Still I'm just SO tired.

My PE happened in my first trimester, at about 10 weeks. I'm now about 13 weeks. This pregnancy has been extremely difficult -- besides the PE I has terrible nausea 24 hours a day for 2 months. Luckily that has now subsided. This is my second pregnancy. I have a 7 year old and there were no problems with clotting in that pregnancy (or nausea for that matter). The obstetrician did say I'd likely be induced (I was also for the first pregnancy so I have some idea what that's like) and that they will work with the hematologists to coordinate the blood thinners. So it sounds like they've got it covered.

As for the CT scan. It's true, there's nothing I can do about it now. The drs seemed to think it wasn't too dangerous, and they said there was no choice. As one dr put it "There's nothing worse for a fetus than a dead mother." Blunt but to the point, and it actually made me feel better about getting the scan because there really was no other option.

I do find myself kind of hanging on to whole hospital experience, and the negative things that happened. Maybe talking to a therapist will help me get over some of that. My GP said I have to move on, get out and exercise, and not worry but it's easier said than done.

You really have been though the wringer! I know for weeks I would replay everything that had happened in my head. Revisited how lucky I was to go with my gut feeling that *something* was wrong. How glad I was that my asthma doc sent me to the ER. It was really traumatic and I relived it all the time some days. That really is normal after an event like this.

Finding a good therapist can take a few tries. (It is like dating, you won't necessarily click with the first person you see.) But, once you find a good therapist, they are worth their weight in gold.

Hang in there! Keep us posted!