My first pregnancy went very smoothly, I was all about having a natural birth. I exercised regularly and ate well. I did however seem to be putting on a lot of water weight but my doctors said it was normal. I gave birth at almost 41 weeks. I needed to be induced because my water broke and I was not contracting. So a little over 24 hours after my water broke I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She looked super healthy to me but the doctors were concerned due to several factors that she had contracted strep. They told me this could kill a baby and whisked her off to the NICU. I was so upset and spent the night crying and praying for my baby. Next day they said she was looking better.

A nurse came in at one point and took my blood pressure, said it couldn't be right and that she would come back later. Well there was a lot of running back and forth to the NICU and changing rooms that day. I didn't feel well at all but chalked it up to the last 48 hours without sleep. By 6 or 7 that night I was asking for percocet to relieve my chest pain. At some point they finally did a blood test and determined I had HELLP syndrome. Platelets were down to 45,000 and liver numbers were much higher than they should have been. I spent the next 24 hours on magnesium and was sent home.

I had a lot of weird symptoms after that. I actually went back to the emergency room that night because I felt so weak. Later that week I was having very irregular heart beats. I didn't realize how serious HELLP could be until I researched it online. I was then afraid to go through another pregnancy. However, after going to a high risk specialist and having some tests, I was told that it was ok to go for another pregnancy. I did go through with it again, this time with some high blood pressure issues that peaked after birth again but no other issues. I took blood pressure meds for a week or 2 and that was it. I thank God everyday for my two beautiful girls.