I was lucky. In so many ways, I was lucky -- not lucky to have preeclampsia, of course, but lucky in when I got it and in how much my medical providers listened to me. 

When preeclampsia hit, I felt no symptoms. I was in labor, and called my doctor for other concerning signs. She didn't think I was in full labor yet, but she told me to come in to get checked out. They dianosed severe preeclampsia almost immediately, gave me blood pressure meds, and put me on a magnesium drip. If she hadn't listened and told me to come in, I wouldn't have known that my blood pressure was dangerously high. I was lucky.

Theo was full term so there was no decision to make about whether to deliver now or wait. We were lucky. Piece by piece, every feature of my birth plan from unmedicated birth to delayed cord clamping became impossible -- except for the last and most important two: safe baby, safe me. We were lucky.

After delivery, I was lucky again, when my nurses listened to me and held my hand through 12 hours of intermittment post-partum hemorrhaging before the doctor decided to put me under and try to find the source and resolve it. The magnesium had been stopped in an attempt to slow the bleeding, so as soon as I came out of surgery that stitched up a massive hematoma, I was hooked up to the magnesium again as well as two blood transfusions. I was lucky again, thanks to two people I've never met who chose to give blood. I now give blood regularly, so that others can be lucky too.

I was lucky to be born in an era when even this "perfect storm of complications" were all resolvable, an era when Theo and I could return home together just a few days later. Our story isn't perfect; there's a huge list of things I wish had been done differently. That's why I'm here.

I'm fundraising today so that other moms don't have to be so "lucky" -- preeclampsia occures in 5-8% of pregnancies, but its frequency has increased 25% in the last decades. It is a leading cause of infant and maternal illness and death. There's currently no test that can predict it; we can only diagnose it from symptoms, especially high blood pressure.

Pregnant moms should be prescribed a blood pressure cuff to monitor their own health at home.