Meet Evren

• Baby Saves

• 04.01.19

I never EVER leave reviews or testimonials but this app saved my and my baby’s lives, and if my story can inspire any mother-to-be to understand the importance of kick counting, it is well worth sharing!

One Saturday afternoon, as I entered week 34 of my first pregnancy and after coming down with a cold a few days prior, I had just realized that, for the first time since my baby was big enough for me to feel fetal movement, I had only felt very faint kicks for the last 48 hours or so. Up until that point, despite my OB reminding me of the importance of kick counting during each visit, I never bothered to do so because I was growing a little baby ninja inside of me that was punching and kicking just about every hour on the hour since way before any doctor or app said I would be able to feel anything.

Given that pregnancy is chock full of all kinds of strange, unfamiliar and uncomfortable symptoms, particularly in the last trimester, I attributed my lethargy and headache during these cold symptoms to be par for the course and assumed that the baby was moving around less simply because I was less mobile while sick. By some miracle, after 2 or 3 days of these symptoms, it suddenly occurred to me that I should do a quick kick count. I tried using all of the tricks I had heard of, including laying on my side, drinking orange juice, and even gently poking my belly a bit to encourage a response, but I could feel next to nothing. After about an hour, I scrolled my iPhone App Store for an app that might help with kick counting and randomly came across this one.

Once I downloaded it, I noticed there were stories posted of other mothers who had experienced similar symptoms, many of whom had ended up with emergency c-sections after performing a kick count, trusting their instincts and realizing that something felt “off”. Within 10 minutes of combing through these stories, I decided to pick up the phone and call my doctor’s office after hours. Fortunately, the on-call doctor had the sense to express some urgency to me over the phone to get over to the hospital right away to assess the situation. I was raised to be a “tough cookie” and to muscle through most situations and avoid being a hypochondriac, so on that particular day, had it not been for this app and the call that followed, instructing me to head to the hospital, we might have had a very different outcome.

Unbeknownst to me, I had developed severe preeclampsia in just a matter of days and the symptoms I was feeling had nothing to do with a cold or general pregnancy discomfort but rather with a much more serious condition that had suddenly started to compromise both my health and the health of the baby. After only 2 hours of monitoring my blood pressure at the hospital, the doctors determined that the baby needed to be delivered right away, and 45 minutes later he arrived via emergency c-section. My sky high blood pressure and failing liver and kidney function would not have supported his vitals much longer. Thank God for this app and for the bravery of all of the women who shared their stories so generously. Had it not been for that, I don’t even want to think about what might have happened.

Fortunately, after a few weeks in the ICN, my baby emerged happy and healthy, and I couldn’t be more grateful. For those women who are also soon-to-be first-time mothers, please trust your instincts and more importantly PLEASE don’t underestimate the importance of kick counts!!