I Had Kim Kardashian's Scary Pregnancy Problem — and Lived to Tell
The writer about 10 minutes after giving birth to her daughter. (All photos courtesy of Jennifer Gerson Uffalussy)
Caitlyn Jenner isn’t the only member of the Kardashian Klan making headlines this week: After a very public struggle with secondary infertility, Kim Kardashian West has announced that she and husband Kanye West are expecting their second child together this December.
Though if the rumors are to be believed, that would more accurately be children, as there is wide speculation that Kardashian West is in fact pregnant with twins following rumored IVF treatment made necessary by damage caused to her uterus after her delivery of first child, daughter North, in June 2013. In addition to suffering from preeclampsia during her pregnancy, Kardashian West had a rare delivery complication, placenta accreta, wherein the placenta attaches too deeply to the uterine wall and requires manual removal that results in uterine tearing and hemorrhaging. In most cases, it results in an emergency hysterectomy. In some cases, it can result in death.
How do I know? I also had placenta accreta when I gave birth to my first child 10 weeks ago.
When I was 19 weeks pregnant, a routine blood test — which screens for the alpha-fetoprotein that’s produced by the fetus’s liver and crosses over through the placenta into the mother’s bloodstream — showed slightly elevated levels, indicating the possibility of a neural tube defect such as spina bifida, kidney or bowel deformation, or placental issues. After hours of ultrasounds with a perinatologist ruled out the first two possibilities, I was told that I most likely had received a false positive on the screen, but I continued to receive regular monitoring throughout my pregnancy to watch for a possible placental abruption — when the placenta peels away from the uterine wall before delivery — the most likely problem my doctors anticipated, should a problem with my placenta eventually present itself.
The writer in the hospital after the birth of her daughter.
As my pregnancy progressed, my perinatologist and ob-gyn were both thrilled with my progress: Despite my having suffered from hyperemesis gravidarum throughout my pregnancy, the fetus was growing just as it should be and my placenta continued to remain intact. The perinatologist was thrilled when I “graduated” from his office at 36 weeks, a milestone not reached by many potentially high-risk pregnancies.
I went into labor not with a bang but with a whimper when, at 37 weeks, my ob-gyn found I was leaking very small amounts of amniotic fluid. I was sent to the hospital for observation, with plans to be induced the next day. Even at this point, though not typical, this development was far from dangerous. I called my husband on my way to the hospital, telling him to not bother coming over until he had finished work for the day, as there was no point in sitting around and staring at me all afternoon. After all, my labor wasn’t even scheduled to begin until morning and there was absolutely no cause for concern. At this point, I was zero centimeters dilated and zero percent effaced.
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I ended up going into labor on my own that evening, my water breaking as I laughed hysterically while talking to my cousin, an ER nurse at the hospital in which I was delivering, who had dropped by to visit. In an hour, I was already four centimeters dilated. I called my husband and told him he needed to get over to the hospital immediately. Within four hours, I was fully dilated and ready to start pushing. And yet even with this unexpected — and unexpectedly fast — labor, there was still no indication that things would go anything but smoothly once it became time to bring my baby into the world.
In fact, even despite almost needing a C-section after failing to make progress while pushing, everything went as normally as is possible in the frenzy and drama of any delivery — all that sweat! all that screaming! all that incessant asking from my husband if there really was no time for him to sneak out for a snack!
It was only after my daughter was born that I began to sense any signs of a problem.
Once she had been measured and weighed and cleaned up, the nurses, I could tell, were unwilling to pass her to me. I was immediately convinced that something was wrong with my beautiful new baby: I kept asking over and over again if she was OK. I couldn’t think of any other reason why I wouldn’t be able to immediately hold my newborn. It never even dawned on me that the problem could be with me.
Writer Jennifer Gerson Uffalussy shortly after returning home from the hospital.
And it was my first baby, my first delivery — I had no baseline for understanding what the norm was and should be. I didn’t know enough to be concerned by all the blood I soon saw.
My memories of what happened over the next few hours are hazy at best. I know there was a lot of blood. I know my ob-gyn was intently focused. I know he told me there had been some significant bleeding. I knew my nurse came every 30 minutes (or was it more often? time stood still then) to check to see how much I continued to bleed. At some point, my doctor explained that my placenta hadn’t detached on its own and so had to be manually removed. There had been tearing in my uterus. Hopefully, everything would be OK.
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I remained under observation in my labor and delivery room for the next five hours. I had no idea at the time that my medical team was in constant debate over whether I might need a blood transfusion to make up for the massive amounts of blood I had lost or a hysterectomy to remove the uterus that would not stop bleeding. I didn’t have a full sense, in the haze of exhaustion and pain and, yes, euphoria, of how dangerous things had gotten until the next morning when the nursing instructor supervising the student nurses who came by my postpartum room on rounds announced that her students were all so eager to meet the woman who had “almost bled out during her delivery.”
I felt like Harry Potter: I was the girl who lived.
In time I learned that I had placenta accreta. The questionable placental problem that had been watched for throughout my pregnancy — and foreshadowed by that elevated MSAFP — wasn’t a placenta ready to leak or disintegrate. Rather, it was a placenta that had burrowed itself too deeply into my body. And yet, I was one of the lucky ones: It hadn’t overtaken other organs, as can happen in extreme cases of the condition. I hadn’t needed a hysterectomy. I hadn’t died.
The writer at home with her daughter.
And now, with my gorgeous newborn girl at my side, I find myself in a very similar position to that which Kardashian West has made so public on Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
I don’t know if I will be able to have another baby on my own. I don’t know if there is lasting scarring or damage to my uterus. And I don’t know if it is truly even safe for me to try to conceive and carry a pregnancy again. While the condition itself is rare, it is highly likely to reoccur in women who have previously experienced it. For the even smaller number of women who make it through a delivery with placenta accreta without having their uteruses removed, subsequent pregnancies are discouraged.
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Women who do conceive on their own again are typically scheduled to have a preterm C-section followed by an immediate hysterectomy after the birth of their second child. Pregnancy following placenta accreta is risky for mother and child both, even in the best-case scenarios.
And so while I am encouraged by the news of the infamous Kim K’s pregnancy, I also can’t help but find myself concerned for her and saddened for myself. I am still unsure what the future will hold for my family and me.
For the Kardashian West family, though, I hope for nothing but the best.
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