After 19 hours of labour from induction, I gave birth to a healthy baby girl who I couldn’t wait to take home. Baby and I were released from the hospital 24 hours after delivery, with no complications.

Over the next week, I began to have headaches almost daily. These headaches were never extremely severe, but were not something to ignore. After taking Tylenol, many times the headache persisted, but would subside after a couple hours.

Exactly one week after delivery, I woke up normal and grabbed my cup of coffee. My daughter and my mom were sitting on the couch a crossed from me. The next thing I remember is I am waking up in a hospital bed hours later asking where my daughter is.

After sitting down on the couch that morning, I began seizing. Within 45 minutes, I had three seizures lasting over a minute a piece. After having a very healthy pregnancy and no prior complications, this was very shocking.

At the hospital, I was given a magnesium drip for 24 hours to keep from seizing and bring down my blood pressure. After MRI and CT scans, they saw a spot in my brain that at the time no one had a definite answer of what it is. The doctors said there were three options: Eclampsia, Stroke, or a tumor. I was discharged from the hospital two days later with seizure medication, blood thinners (in case the spot in my brain was a stroke), and told to keep a check on my blood pressure.The night I was discharged I ended up back in the ER with a blood pressure way above critical condition. Again, the hospital said there was no definite answer for what happened, gave another 24 hours of magnesium,and added a blood pressure medication.

Once out of the hospital my OBGYN referred me to a High Risk OB. She looked at my scans and knew that with a repeat MRI, we could confirm that I had Posterior Reversible Encephalopathy Syndrome (PRES) a form of postpartum preeclampsia. After the repeat MRI, the spot on my brain was completely gone. This confirmed that the seizures were caused by eclampsia. After a month of questions with answers, we were so thankful to have an OBGYN who was able to diagnose me.