At 5months pregnant whilst playing in the park with my 2 year old son I suffered a heamorheagic stroke caused by an asymptomatic AVM.
My craniotomy lasted just short of 10 hours & saved us both. My daughter was delivered at 36 weeks after I spent those next few months between icu/hdu. She is coming up for 2 and is perfectly fit & well . I spent a long 12 months in hospital, ending with a stay in neuro rehab. Relearnt to swallow, speak, sit etc & albeit slowly and with caution I can now walk!
Congratulations on the birth of your daughter.
You must be so pleased, proud and relieved that she is okay.
Thank you for sharing your story.
I hope you will continue to read here and share your news.
You are a very brave lady.
keep on keepin on
Wow! Thank God both your lives were preserved, that your baby girl is healthy and you are doing well after what must have been a pretty nightmarish experience.
Welcome to this forum. Looking forward to hearing more from you as and when you can.
Thank you for sharing your story.
Trace
Thank you so very much for your kind words x
Very much still in recovery mode but coming home was the greatest form of medicine x
Hi @pregnantsurvivor and welcome to the community.
Thank you for sharing your story, that’s a lot to have come through, and it can’t have been easy to write down. I’m glad your daughter is doing well, and it sounds like you’ve worked really hard to get where you are.
There are plenty of people here who know what recovery and rehab feel like, so do have a look around and join in wherever feels right.
If you need a hand finding your way around the forum, just tag me in a post, or drop us a message through the service desk.
It’s a long journey, recovery I mean, with all sorts of twists and turns.
This Forum is a great place to discover you are not alone, that there is a future and others here who are pleased to hear from you.
best wishes and stay in touch.
Hi and a big welcome to our community. Glad to hear that your daughter is now a fit and healthy 2 year old and it sounds like your road to recovery is going well and you are making great progress after your 12 month stay in hospital.
We are a merry band of stroke survivors and their carers and families and between us we have a wealth of experience and information to share and we hope you will find this a useful place to be.
Keep posting and I look forward to hearing from you as your road to recovery continues.
Regards Sue
I can’t imagine how traumatic that must of been at the time, stroke itself is traumatic, but while pregnant would have amplified that to a great degree, and must have been scary for your son too. Good to hear that you have made progress on your rehabilitation and that your daughter is well and healthy.
@pregnantsurvivor - welcome and nice to meet you.
Thank you for sharing your story with us and it’s really nice to see a new member with a [fairly?] unusual story joining this forum. This diversity of experiences is what makes this forum so rich and wonderful benefitting many 
It’s great to all that you have achieved since the incident and how happy you must be to have two wonderful children (nearly 2 years and 4 year old), also fit and well
I feel sure with your experiences, you may have a lot to share with members on this forum.
There are so many positives in your post and I found it truly heart warming. I wish you and your young family, long, healthy and happy lives. It seems to me, the future is bright for all of you.
Namaste|
In my original response, when I said “I feel sure with your experiences, you may have a lot to share with members on this forum.” I forgot to mention that if there is anything that has happened or a difficulty you have overcome, you don’t have to wait for someone to ask before posting.
What I am trying to say is, just as something compelled you to join this forum now after all this time, you may just want to write posts about things that worked well for you, things that didn’t work so well etc. etc. Often when members do this, other members find this useful but they may not have wanted to ask or bring it up for whatever reason.
I might be making a pigs ear of this and so I guess I should leave it at that and you can decide what and when to post on here. It’s totally your choice and there are no obligations
@pregnantsurvivor Hi & welcome to the community. Congratulations on the birth of your daughter. What a journey you have been but so pleased all turned out ok with your son & that you are making progress too. It must be difficult having 2 young kids & dealing with your recovery too. I take my hat off to you.
Thanks for your warm, thoughtful response.
My experience is so unusual that despite searching I’m yet to find another pregnant survivor. I’m hoping that is because no others have endured such trauma x
@Mrs5K slowly learning that grief & celebration can both be apparent and valid at the same time.
Grieving for the 2yr old son that I I’ll never get back & for the baby girl I’ll never know but celebrating my 4yr old superstar & beautiful 2yr old that I’m blessed to have as mine
@ManjiB your well wishes are greatly appreciated. X
You may want to look at the Different Strokes Facebook Group. They are for younger stroke survivors & you might find a pregnant survivor on there.
That’s a nice way of thinking about it. If you are going to be unique then I guess this might not be a bad thing - I mean this in the nicest possible way.
And whilst there may not be any other stroke survivors who were pregnant when they had their strokes, there almost certainly will be some who were young mothers as you were at the time you had your stroke.
Wow! What a strong lady you are!
And what a story you can sit down with your kids and tell them all about when they are older and can fully understand how strong, determined and brave you are! Amazing!
December 6th 2021 late evening, I was struggling to get up the stairs and my right leg started playing up, then my right arm felt really heavy and I was trying to unlock my door, I then collapsed over the step and was throwing up, in and out of consciousness, thankfully I just about managed to ring 999 to explain the situation but because I didn’t know what was going on, they said to me “ have you ever suffered from a stroke before “ little did I know, I was having a subarachnoid cerebral haemorrhage and had to wait an hr and 21 minutes for an ambulance. According to hospital records, in an mri - it’s because of an AVM and I had a popped aneurysm. I was then put in a coma and rushed to addenbrookes hospital for emergency surgery. Worst part is that, throughout 2021 I kept getting severe headaches like no other, but I wished I got it checked out! But at the age of 21 then, you just wouldn’t have thought it. I had to learn to talk again, physio didn’t do anything for me. Then March 25th 2022, I was admitted in again for my second surgery, where my surgeon removed the rest of the AVM and then fitted a cranioplasty titanium plate to fill the big space where the surgeon took half of my skull away. It’s nuts to hear and see all these other AVM stories!
Hello @brunning26 - welcome to the community and thank you for taking time to share your story with us. You joining us and sharing your experiences with us enriches this community and it helps others.
Whilst it may be nuts to hear and see all these stories, it helps demonstrate the reality
Welcome and looking forward to more from you
Namaste|
Hi @brunning26 & welcome to the community. Sorry you’ve had cause to join us but thank you for sharing your story. You really don’t expect to be having a atroke / AVM at the ripe old age of 21 and it must have been a massive shock for you. It does happen though unfortunately.
Pleased to hear you are getting on ok & hope that you continue to make good progress.
Best wishes
Ann
