Motherhood is something I've wanted for as long as I can remember and it was a long journey to get here having to go through infertility and loss along with many other things my blood pressure becoming elevated around 20 weeks. I also had protein in my urine but with a history of horseshoe kidneys my doctors thought it was from that, even though I never had kidney issues before. I was being moved around back and forth from regular to high-risk doctors and was started on blood pressure medicine and told I had prenatal hypertension but not yet preeclampsia. I heard about preeclampsia but didn't think it would happen to me and be severe I was definitely in denial.

Weeks went by and I would continue to hazve high blood pressures off and on. I got a blood pressure cuff to track at home but was never consistent and I thought the cuff was no good since at the doctors my numbers were better. At one point I had mild chest discomfort but I thought it was just my anxiety. I work in the medical field and one night I checked my blood pressure at work and it was elevated in the high 160s/90s and I was having the chest pain again so I spoke to my husband and friends who told me to go to the hospital but I didnt want to sit there for hours on end.. stupid i know now..I spoke to another friend who was a doctor and the on-call nurses at my ob office and they also said to go to the hospital so i did.

What I thought would be a routine check up to ease my anxiety lead to me being admitted to the hospital and being told I would have to deliver my baby at 34 weeks instead of the already early 37 weeks I was told prior, I thought they were crazy and didn't believe them. The next few days was terrible, I had automatic blood pressure monitoring every 10-15mins, was hooked up to ivs, getting so much medication that made me sick, constant blood draws which I have terrible veins so multiple sticks, no sleep, being stuck there and missing out on events, missing my home, my dog, friends and family. my blood pressure remained elevated so they put me on more blood pressure medication and upped the dose on my other, they also had to give me one through my iv to get it down quicker, they had a concern for seizures or me having a stroke. The nicu team coming to talk to us about all the scary possibilities, again something you don't expect to happen to you and having to make the decision of getting shots to potentially help his little under developed lungs. A few days went by and my blood pressures were getting better and now it was just a waiting game until the following week when I was due to deliver my baby.. until they werent.. they started to rise again even with all the medicine and again upping the dose on my other meds, I was definitely getting frustrated and annoyed being in the hospital and going through everything.

I was trying to relax which was difficult being there and the worry for my soon to be premature baby, I couldn't understand why my blood pressure wouldn't go and stay down. Then an ultrasound showed the flow through my placenta to the umbilical cord was delayed, they measured the baby and he was growing normally so they weren't too concerned and wanted to just monitor him and me. My husband was there during all of this and one night he decided to go home and have a pre planned night with some of his guys friends and I encouraged him too, little did we know what would happen that same night. I was feeling okay but my blood pressures wouldn't go down they were in the high 180s/90s to 190s/90s at this point and a doctor came in and said they didn't want to wait until next week to deliver but that they had to do it sooner at 33 weeks and when I said when she said that night in the next few hours. I couldn't believe what I just heard and started crying, and called my husband to explain he had to come back, Not much longer we were getting prepared to have the baby via emergency c-section and welcomed our baby boy at 4lbs 5oz named Bodhi