In May of 2020 at 16 weeks pregnant my blood pressure spiked. I had a few elevated readings during fertility treatments but it’s stressful & I was on all kinds of medications so no one thought anything of it. Now it was consistently high, my drs put me on blood pressure medication and monitored me but I was only 16 weeks and preeclampsia doesn’t typically show up that early so it was never discussed. At 19+ weeks I started feeling awful during a holiday weekend oncall at work. Everything I googled pointed to preeclampsia but I wasn’t 20 weeks yet so it couldn’t be that & I kept working. On Memorial Day I developed the most excruciating abdominal pain that kept me up all night so I finally called my dr the next morning. I could hear the panic in the nurses voice when she told me I needed to go to the hospital right away but I still had no idea how sick I was. At the hospital I was met by the Dr on call for my Obgyn group and a maternal fetal medicine Dr from Strong, they drew all kinds of blood and went over all the possibilities. It could be nothing, maybe something auto immune or it could be HELLP (which would be extremely rare because it’s so early) and in that case the only treatment is to terminate the pregnancy. Unfortunately that night I was diagnosed with HELLP, my liver was swelling & my platelets were dropping. I was given 2 options I could go to the operating room & have a D&E or I could be induced. Having previously had a couple of early miscarriages I was adamant that I deliver & meet the little girl that I had been carrying for 20 weeks now so the next morning I was transferred to Strong to begin my induction. I was met by the most caring group nurses who bent rules for me & walked me through exactly what I could expect throughout the process. After about 24 hours my sweet little Lily was born sleeping at only 7ozs & 9 inches long. Hopefully with more research & education no other mother & baby will have to experience what Lily & I had to.