I (24) was 36 weeks and 2 days pregnant when I went to the emergency room with severe abdominal pain. We figured I was going to be put on bed rest or something for the duration of my last few weeks of pregnancy. I’d had some pretty significant swelling, but brushed it off thinking it was just from working on my feet. The pain started late Thursday night, I worked that Friday then by Saturday morning it was unbearable. They checked my BP and it was 152/112 in the ER and I was immediately wheeled up to L&D.

They started monitoring me and ran some lab work. We just figured it was normal. 2 hours later I was signing papers to be put to sleep with the diagnosis of HELLP syndrome and my baby was breeched (feet down) so they didn’t want to chance anything. I lost 4 pints of blood during the procedure and had to have blood given the following day. My son was in the NICU because he wasn’t breathing when he was born, but quickly was deemed okay. I was not released from the hospital for another 3 days due to complications with my heart rate. We both made it to the other side healthy.