My entire pregnancy was healthy and I’ve never had a high blood pressure reading in my life. I was a healthy, excited, 31 year old and my water broke at 39&2 and my first baby was on his way!

I had my 39 week appt only two days prior, so imagine my surprise when I got to the hospital, contractions starting, and they tell me I have very high blood pressure readings. They tell me it’s likely I developed preeclampsia very quickly in the last 48 hours. I had no idea what that meant or how it was going to play a roll in the next 24 hours.

Most of the night was a blur - I tried getting an epidural but after 3 placements, they couldn’t get it to work. Fast forward laboring for almost 24 hours, I was ready to push. After 4 hours of pushing with no baby, they decided to try vacuuming my son out.

A wave of terror came over me. They got his head out, but suddenly the bed is flattening and the whole room swarms above me — a shoulder dystocia. They maneuver my son out (thank goodness) and all of a sudden I feel like I’m going to be sick. I tell the team and they give me a bag. I get sick and all I see is blood at my feet, on the walls, pooling on the floor. I start to feel lightheaded and tired while people are yelling out they need units of blood. The preeclampsia had turned into HELLP syndrome and I was losing all my blood at a rapid rate.

They put me on a bag of magnesium which completely removes me from reality. I can’t feed my son, change his diaper. I can barely keep my eyes open and I can’t believe this nightmare is actually happening. The nurses try to hold my son up to my face to take a picture to remember the moment, but all I see when I look at the picture is sadness for how much was taken from me.
I spent 5 days in the hospital. My palettes were at 21,000 at their lowest (normal is 250,000), having my blood drawn every few hours to see when they would go back up and I could get off the magnesium.

My entire pregnancy I never had anyone mention preeclampsia - I wish I would have known more so I could have better advocated for myself. I’m now due to have my second baby in 19 days and I’m getting weekly bloodwork done to monitor more but I’m still terrified knowing how quickly things went south last time. I always want to educate women about my experience, but I often hear that it’s “not helpful” because it spreads fear, but I know being educated would have helped me.