God asked me to take a journey a never wanted to go on. As a maternal and child health professional, I always had ideas about the way pregnancy and labor and deliver would go. I looked forward to the nine months of watching my child grow in my womb, laboring, delivering vaginally, and getting those blissful moments of skin-to-skin right after my child was born and learning to breastfeed. Following a day or two in the hospital, I would then get to take my child home and enjoy maternity leave learning how to be a mom.

Unfortunately, none of that happened. I found out at our 20 week anatomy scan that my daughter was in the 13th percentile for her grow. This started a round of weekly biophysical profiles to make sure she was doing the things she needed to be. Week after week, she passed and I held on to hope that the next growth scan would show significant improvement. It didn't. She was still small and the doctor discussed with us that we may need to take her early to give her the nutrients needed to grow and that she wouldn't let me go past 39 weeks. While it wasn't the news I wanted, I at least had the ability to continue my pregnancy through 39 weeks and would be able to labor as long as the little lady was stable. On July 3rd, I went in for a routine checkup with the nurse practitioner at my OB's office.

While there she took my blood pressure twice and asked me if I had ever had elevated blood pressure and I said no. Normally, I would not have even given this a second thought. However, the week before I had been in a maternal mortality review committee meeting and we had a case where a woman had one elevated blood pressure and then within a few weeks died along with her baby. I sat in the office slightly terrified I would meet the same fate.

I called my mom and told her I was feeling like I was going to die. As I processed things on my drive home, my only prayer was God, just let my daughter be okay and allow me to see her face before I die. I decided to monitor my blood pressure over the holiday weekend. All weekend my BP was elevated. I called my OB on Monday and went in for them to check it. It was again elevated. I was told to continue to monitor it and go to labor and delivery if it got over 160/110. On July 9th, I went to labor and delivery for decreased fetal movement. Once they got the monitor on her, she started kicking it like crazy. But they did not like my BP. My OB came in and said she was going to put me on BP medication and wanted me to do a 24 hour urine collection. They also administered the first of two steroid shots to help her lungs develop in the event I had to deliver early.

On July 10th, I was back at my OB's office and was sent back to L&D to have my BP monitored. By the end of the next day, I was on bedrest and the conversation became delivery at 36 weeks. Ultimately, my BP continued to be an issue and I developed severe abdominal pain that I tolerated for a week before my BP was elevated too high for to long for me to ignore. My husband took me to the hospital and soon I was told I had developed HELLP Syndrome and would be transferred to a hospital about an hour away that had a higher level NICU. On Sunday July 21st, I had an emergent c-section due to fears that I may bleed out due to how low my platelets were. By the grace of God, I didn't have any significant bleeding issues and my daughter, while only 3lbs 5oz, was healthy and strong. We spent 28 days in the NICU and within a week or so my BP was back to normal. I still think of the woman's story who died from HELLP Syndrome and how her story likely saved my life and my baby's. I'm telling my story to honor her life and in hopes that my story may someday be a lifeline to another woman.