I was extremely lucky, I got diagnosed and induced as soon as I showed symptoms. I've always struggled with irregular, painful periods, so I never thought anything of it, I was told it was normal for people of my ethnicity. At the beginning of my pregnancy, I had an ultrasound to check on the baby, that's when the doctors saw cysts on my ovaries, which they said could be the cause of my menstrual issues. At another routine ultrasound, the doctors noticed I had placenta previa, meaning that the placenta was covering a portion of the cervical opening. It was still early and the doctors said it wasn't anything to worry about, so I didn't. Around 24 or 25 weeks, I went into early labor, had really bad cramps and back pain, because of the placenta previa. The doctors gave me a steroid shot to stop the contractions and sent me on my way once they stopped. Luckily, my baby grew and stretched the uterus so that the placenta moved off of the cervix.

During the pregnancy, I had gained a lot of weight, about sixty pounds in total. On the day of my due date, I woke up because of an awful headache, as bad as a migraine except it wasn't, it felt different. I just thought I was hungry and maybe a little dehydrated but I didn't think much of it, I just made breakfast, drank some water and Pedialyte, and took some Tylenol. I noticed that the headache was getting worse a couple of hours later, so I took more Tylenol and checked my blood pressure. My blood pressure was pretty high, but I figured it was just the pain from the headache making that happen, so I went to lay down for a bit.

A couple of hours later, the headache is still there so I ate something, drank some water and checked my blood pressure again, it had went up quite a bit, so we rushed to the hospital while phoning my OB/GYN. They gave me acetaminophen with codeine, which didn't touch my headache, and ran blood test and a urine test. When the results came back, they immediately began inducing me, the nurse said that I had preeclampsia and they needed to get the baby out as soon as possible. Everything was going good, I had the epidural so I slept through most of my labor, then came time for the pushing, which was the hardest part. I didn't feel like myself when the time came to push, I felt disoriented and confused but I assumed it was normal with labor, this was my first pregnancy so I didn't know anything. After my baby was born, I was not feeling good at all, the placenta came out and I felt extremely tired, I was falling asleep and couldn't keep my eyes open at all.

From what I was told, I started hemorrhaging, bad, the doctor started barking orders, nurses were pushing meds, and a nurse called for the crash team on the intercom. I had lost two liters of blood before being transferred to the operating room, where I lost two more liters, and they started transfusions. The doctor put a Bakri balloon inside my uterus to stop the bleeding and force my uterus to contract. After the procedure, I was put into ICU to recover and finish my blood transfusions, as well as all the other fluids that were on my IV stand. My baby ended up getting meconium in her, so the NICU nurses suctioned it all out, then placed her in the NICU to recover. I don't remember the next day either, I had a lot of medication going through my IV, I'm told I did get into a postpartum room the next morning. On the last day in the hospital, my nurse from the delivery was taking care of me, I asked her what happened because I remember falling asleep after my baby was born but nothing after that. She told me that me being sleepy was me passing away, which is why they were trying to keep me awake. She told me about my baby, the procedure, and how I ended up in the postpartum room. My baby almost didn't have her mama because of preeclampsia, I was so lucky to have a very knowledgeable team that took great care of my baby and I. I am forever grateful for them and I am forever in their debt.