My life has changed since being diagnosed with preeclampsia, "a life-threatening hypertensive disorder that occurs only during pregnancy and the postpartum period" (https://www.preeclampsia.org/), and there are so many changes I have to make to keep my body healthy. On April 30th, 2023 my son was born. I made it to 39 weeks before I was induced due to a very high blood pressure reading in my doctors office. I was sent to Labor & Delivery to have my vitals taken again and was ultimately admited to be induced due to severe preeclampsia. I spent 3 days in labor before my son was born via c-section in the early morning of April 30th. I had little to no symptoms, only my high BP reading was the initial indicator of my preeclampsia. 

I am doing this race because preeclampsia is the leading cause of maternal and fetal death in the world. My son and I were almost apart of that statistic. Preeclampsia stole a lot from me and I want to make sure that there are less birthing people who have to go through the same experince I did. Thankfully my baby was full term, but there are so many babies born prematurely due to the mother developing preeclampsia and some are born too early to ever be able to see life outside of the NICU. I am so thankful that my baby is healthy and thriving even after a short NICU stay, which had nothing to do with the preeclampsia diagnosis. 

I am so thankful to be able to use my voice and share my experience with preeclampsia to help educate other birthing people about how serious this is and the long term effects of preeclampsia.