Local, Expert Care for Preeclampsia [Anna Rempe]

I am Anna Rempe, and I am from the Coleman area, and I'm an accountant here in Brookings, South Dakota. In my family, I have three daughters. My oldest is Evelyn, my middle daughter is Emma, and then my youngest is Ella. And recently, we just added a son, little Elliot.

How was your care during pregnancy?

I absolutely loved it because I work here in Brookings, so it was way more convenient to pop over here, especially later term, you have so many more appointments, so then to only go to appointment for like 10, 20 minutes. So then, before, I was driving an hour to Sioux Falls. And so, to be able to just pop here was like super nice and convenient. And then, it seemed to go pretty fast too. You could just pop in and then if I had to do other imaging and stuff like that, they could always schedule it pretty fast here in the Brookings Hospital. So, yeah, altogether, it was very convenient and very personable and yeah, I had a great experience.

How was your doctor?

Through this whole experience, she's listened to everything I've said and to me it seems like she always goes above and beyond. Even with the induction process and everything, coming to check in on me multiple times. And even when I was getting close to delivery, that's when Elliot's heart rate would keep dropping or whatever and she was right in there right away. So, to me, she must've been like close by. It was just such a nice feeling knowing she was always there.

Why were you induced?

I was induced with Elliot because I had preeclampsia. And I've had preeclampsia with two other pregnancies I've had previously, so I kind of knew what was coming. But this was the first time that I was induced at 37 weeks.

How did Brookings Health System compare to your Sioux Falls hospital?

Very different because going into the bigger hospital, it's a lot of waiting especially when you get a planned induction, you kind of have to wait in the admissions area for quite a while. I felt like we... And you're so excited to go have a baby, but then you're just kind of waiting. And then you get into the room and then there, you're in a delivery room, so you feel like you don't wanna take all your stuff because it's a lot of stuff. So, I know my husband, as we had more kids, would kind of leave stuff in the car until we got into our postpartum room. But then, at the same time, we also had an experience where we were stuck in the delivery room for a while. So then, we had to go get all of our stuff, bring it to the delivery room, and then bring it all into postpartum. So, it was nice this time around to just have everything in one spot and be in the same room the whole time.

How did delivery at Brookings Health System compare to your previous deliveries?

In Sioux Falls when the doctor comes in, it's like 20 people come in at the same time. Well here, it was way more intimate because it was the nurse that I had, because when you're induced, you have a nurse in the room all the time with you. And so, it was her. And then when she said it was about ready time to push, then that's what I was assuming was gonna happen. All of a sudden there was gonna be like 20 different people in the room. But what actually ended up happening is my doctor came in and then one other nurse came in. And I'm assuming that nurse was for Elliot, like the baby nurse. And that was it.

So, during the actual delivery of Elliot, there was only three people, like three other people in the room. And it made me feel more calm because when all of a sudden you have 20 people in the room, you think like something bad is gonna happen, but... And nothing ever does because then, they slowly fizzle out. But when you just have two other people enter the room, you stay calm, collective, and you just stay focused more and you're not like, "Whoa, 20 people!" Versus you just keep in the mood of I've got to push this kid out, you know? So, it was quite different and I wasn't expecting that.

How did postpartum care compare to your previous deliveries?

So, I definitely enjoyed my postpartum experience better at this hospital than I did in the previous ones just because of that, the bigger room, the big windows, you didn't feel like you were in a little cave. And I think that's what made my mood even better because you're like excited because you're kind of, you're up all night anyway, so you get to watch the sun come up, and even like the sun going down, it kind of helps you get into more of that routine of night and day too. So, that's the one big difference is you have these huge windows, and that you did not have that at the previous hospital. It was like this one little teeny window.

How was your recovery?

My preeclampsia decided to stick around. So, at first, it wasn't enough to keep me in the hospital. They did end up discharging me and then I would have to come here for blood pressure checks. And then it never ended up kind of fizzling out. So, what ended up happening is two weeks later I got readmitted to do a magnesium drip. And I think since I had such a good positive experience the first time, even though it wasn't ideal to get readmitted after you just had a baby, I was actually kind of looking forward to seeing some of the faces again. And just having another set of hands, and especially having three other kids at home, it kind of was nice to come back. So, I would say my recovery was a little bit crazier, but I definitely felt fully supported. And like I said, even having to come back, I was somewhat a little bit excited.

What would you tell someone considering delivery in Sioux Falls?

I would tell them that you do not need to drive to Sioux Falls because this is such a great hospital right here in your local community. And it makes it so nice if you have family here already. And especially if you have your children here, it's so nice to be within minutes or even a half an hour away, you know, then you're able to just drive here and come here and have that small town feeling, and people like greet you with a smile on your face, and you feel like you've been here your whole life. But definitely, you don't get that type of feeling when you have to go to Sioux Falls because you're just a big... You're just kind of more of I don't wanna say a number, but you're a patient there, versus you kind of feel like you're family here. And quite honestly, it's a little bit funny because Elliot is probably our last child, but we always said we wanted five kids. And so, now, I'm kind of poking at my husband and saying, "Hey, I only had one in the Brookings Health System, and it would be nice if I had all of 'em," or even I was like, "Let's just have one more," because it was such a good experience.

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