To start off, my name is Arianna and I’m 24 years old. When I found out I was pregnant I was real early, maybe 3 weeks. My fiancé and I had been trying for roughly six months. That sounds like a short time period, but negative tests back to back became discouraging and leading us disappointed. We got our first ultrasound at the end of November 2019, where we were shocked and excited to be announced with twins. From there the journey began. I don’t ever remember having conversations about preeclampsia. Anything I learned about preeclampsia was from twin mom groups, never the doctors. In fact, I remember specifically being told to not look up anything in regards to my pregnancy, which was understanding because you can look up “cough like symptoms” and google will tell you, you’re dying. So I understand and I took that and ran with it. I did not look up anything regarding pregnancy or twins. Any question I had, I asked the groups I was in. Around 31-32 weeks pregnant I started feeling real crappy. My face was swollen, legs, arms, fingers, toes, basically everything! The headaches were excruciating, and I rarely get headaches. This was awful. I’d have my blackout curtains closed all day long and sleep sleep sleep. Any piece of lighting made me feel like a vampire, who got caught in the sun too long. At 32 weeks, probably Thursday, so 32 wks and 5 days, I went to my doctors office because I couldn’t feel our daughters moving and I was concerned. I remember the look on the nurses face after she took my BP, that got me terrified. The doctor told me to go to the hospital. Shortly after arriving they put me in a room, after a couple tests and urine samples they sent us back home. Over the weekend I felt terrible and my belly had dropped so I’m excited now and nervous because I’m still not feeling our daughters as much. I had an anterior placenta so it was already difficult, but at this point I’m feeling as if I was freshly new to finding out I’m pregnant. That’s how much I didn’t feel movement from the girls. Monday morning I went back to the doctors where they sent me to the hospital and I was admitted. From Monday to Thursday (Thursday was the birth) I was in so much pain, and so out of it. I was giving steroids for our daughters’ lungs, the magnesium, which I only can describe as feeling like a stimulation. Like I’m not really here. It was strange. Then I was giving Tylenol and Benadryl like clock work for the pain. I remember the BP monitor always beeping and going off to where at a certain point the nurses stopped coming in to shut it off. Thursday morning I had my fiancé call in the nurse because I felt my body shutting down. Like something slowing shutting off its power, that’s how I felt. My eyes slowly shutting, followed by my body and mind. At that point they didn’t think I could wait until I was 34 weeks and they started to prep me for the c section. This is where things turned south. While in the OR I wasn’t getting numb, I remember everything being so fast pace and scary. When I was told that because I am not getting numb, I’ll have to be put out, I lost it. My mother was unable to come into the OR now that I was going to be put out for the birth of our daughters. 20months later and this still is something that I am so hurt by. Our daughters were born at 6:09pm and 6:10pm weighing 4.10 lbs and 5.7 lbs. In the recovery room I woke up and things were so scary and painful. The nurses were taking out clumps of blood clots (sorry for the graphics) and my uterus wasn’t contracting so they had to put on a “balloon like” object inside to get my uterus to contract (sorry for the lack of terms). When they wheeled me back to my room, I remember my mom asking if I was okay and I remember someone (I had a few people in my room, but can’t remember) saying my lips were blue. I still at this point had no clue what happened no clue my daughters were out of me, nothing. I was told I lost almost 3 liters of blood, and would need transfusions. It was bad. Fast forward, I rested a while then woke up, when I woke up my fiancé showed me photos of our little girls.... I felt nothing. I had a very bad dis attachment to the girls. The nurses came in started me off on the blood transfusions and told me I needed to have all that back in, plus walk, plus have my oxygen up, plus be off the magnesium before I could see our daughters... needless to say I wasn’t able to see our daughters for 48 hours. Those first feelings of finally seeing the girls were over stimulated, and my nurse had to wheel me back down because I didn’t “look too good.” The nights at the hospital were sleepless, I was terrified to fall asleep there, I wanted to be home. My blood pressure wouldn’t go down, I was stressed and sad and still a little incoherent, so I didn’t understand a lot of why this was all happening. Now it comes time for mento go home, my blood pressure is still high, I’m talking 158/89. So I was given medicine to help keep the blood pressure lowered. When I was home, I wasn’t eating or drinking, but breast pumping. So that wasn’t helping, either. For about 4 weeks I still had high blood pressure with headaches and week energy. I was constantly in and out of the doctors until they cleared me. Then until my daughters were about 6 months, I would cry and be nervous I was sick. When my monthly friend would come I’d freak out and cry thinking I’d have to go to the hospital. When I’d get asked if I’m feeling okay, I’d respond with are my lips blue is that why you’re asking? It was terrible! Our girls stayed in the NICU for 2.5 weeks. That was a whole different traumatic event, going home without the girls was devastating. Now here I am, 20 months later with toddlers and ready to share my story to every and anyone. Thank you for taken the time to read my story.