My name is Erica, I'm 34 years old and momma to Andrew (5 year old boy) and Holly (7month old girl). My story with Pre-eclampsia starts out like so many others do, back in 2015 I had a completely normal pregnancy with my son up until 30 weeks, other than some shortness of breath (which I attributed to being 30 weeks pregnant). I hadn't even noticed the extreme swelling until I posted my 30 week bump picture on my Facebook page and had a few people that had seen me recently comment on the extreme swelling in my face that hadn't been there the day before. I didn't even look like the same person! At that point, my blood pressure was still fine so my OB referred me to a cardiologist to check for congestive heart failure. The cardiologist took one look at me and told me to lose some weight and stop drinking so much water! Later the same day, my OB had me admitted to the hospital for monitoring and tests because she suspected pre-eclampsia was imminent. I spent 2 weeks on hospital bedrest before my blood pressure spiked out of control and it could not be lowered with medication. I was transferred by ambulance to a larger hospital with a NICU and had an emergency c-section that night because the doctors were afraid I was going either have a stroke or die. My son was born at 32 weeks exactly and spent 5 1/2 weeks in the NICU.

In 2019, I was 38 weeks pregnant with my daughter and started developing signs of pre-eclampsia again so they scheduled a repeat c-section. This time, I had more blood pressure issues for a few weeks after giving birth.