Me finding out I was pregnant was a miracle.  I was always told that I most likely wouldn't have children of my own.  I made sure I was going to every appointment and doing everything that the doctors were telling me.  I started encountering excess swelling, headaches,  and higher blood pressure early on in my pregnancy that just continued to get worse as I progessed.  I continually asked the doctors about it and they just blamed my desk job, excess salt, and the fact that I was overweight to begin with (even though I had never had blood pressure propblems prior to being pregnant).  The doctors started testing for excess proteins as I kept brining up that the swelling was getting worse but they kept saying nothing was wrong because the protein levels were normal.  When I was 35 weeks I went to dinner with my husband and my family to celebrate our anniversary.  We went to the grocery store after dinner and I wasn't feeling good so I asked my husband to help me walk to the truck.  When my dad got me to their house he checked my blood pressure (as he is an EMT) and gave me 2 options, either go to the ER now or call my OB. I called my OB who is a good 2.5 hours from my parents house and he said to go to the nearest hospital with a Labor and Delivery Department.  When I got to the hospital, they were already expecting us and got me right in.  I was immediatly hooked up to all kinds of monitors and ivs. The on call midwife looked at me and told me by dinner time the next day I would have my son in hand but they needed to try to get my blood pressure to a workable rate if they could by magnesium drip and other medicines or they would do an emergency c section.  My blood pressure stayed about the same through the night (they checked it every 30 minutes since from the time I was admitted).  After they started my induction the following morning they offered me an epidural.  That was the worst thing I could have done.  The combination of my body ignoring the blood pressure reducers and the epidural made my blood pressure drop too fast and too far.  They immediately  reversed the epidural.  After I had my son (complication free from that point on), they had to keep me on the meds for over 24 more hours so I was not allowed to be alone with my son as I was restricted to the bed, not even allowed out to use the rest room, and weak from the meds.  They slowly tried to get me off the meds and moved me to a non-delivery room but my blood pressure shot right back up not even 24 hours later so they moved me back to a monitoring room by the nurses station.  My blood pressure finally went low enough the doctors were comfortable with me going home as long as I was with someone 24 hours a day and did not try to do any stairs or anything.  I eventually was able to get my blood pressure down that after a year and a half after I had delivered my son I was completly off of all medications related to my Preeclampsia.  I was only able to do that by doing the research that lead me to the Preeclampsia foundation where their guidance and support helped my goal of being meds free become reality.  I am just trying to give back to them a little for all that they have given me.  Please help me support them the way they supported me and many other wormen like me.