My story of my pregnancy with my eldest one is complicated. Literally. When I first found out I was pregnant, I was so excited. Little did I know that it might cost me my life and his.

My pregnancy seemed normal to me, but then again, I had nothing to compare it too. Although I was practically sick all day (nauseous during the day and puking at night) this too seemed normal and it was. All day sickness I called it. I learned to cope with it and things were going fine. My blood pressure stayed normal and I was gaining weight, the baby was growing fine and there were no concerns. I was even exercising regularly.

Then one evening, I felt this pain under my ribs, right in the liver area. I was also throwing up, but this was nothing unusual. It was a dense pain and I thought that maybe it was just another episode of heartburn. My husband said that I should go and get it checked out. I had gone to the hospital a couple of months before because I was being paranoid and I thought that I was leaking amnionic fluid. But I was wrong. So, off to the hospital I went. the first older nurse that had seen to me, said that I should just go home and rest and that I just had the flu. How wrong she was, and if we had listened to her, I would have seizured at home.

The other nurse that was also on duty told the first nurse that they should check my blood pressure first. They did, and I am sure that they were glad that they did that or it would have a serious mistake on their part. My blood pressure was 200 and something over 100 and something. (regular blood pressure is 120/60.) They then took blood and urine samples, and every other test on the face of the planet, so it seemed. They could only take blood out of one vein, because all of the rest of the veins collapsed. I had no warning signs about anything of all of the diagnosis’ that I received. I had toxemia, preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome. No one even knew.

Then the craziness started. And crazy is just mildly put! I was constantly under nurse supervision, constantly being attended to. Injections of gravol and steroids (for the baby’s lungs), blood pressure check constantly and I was also put on the highest dose of blood pressure medication possible for an expecting woman. I was not quite with it, and dosing constantly only to be wakened by the blood pressure cuff.

Since the hospital that I had been admitted to could not deliver me (I was only 32 weeks) I was transferred by ambulance to another hospital, where I waited for them to poke and prod me some more and then take an ultra sound and then decide that they also could not deliver me. I needed a hospital with NICU. So, I was once again put into an ambulance and off to another hospital I went. I felt like no one really wanted to deal with my case.

It was like an up and down roller coaster for us as new to become parents. I was swelling up like a balloon from all of the fluid backing up into my interstitial spaces and pretty soon there was no where for it to go, except my lungs. I was starting to drown in my own fluid. I was no longer urinating and my kidneys stopped working. In a 24 hour period, I only urinated maybe an ounce. The nurses put a catheter in me to regulate it better, and I begged them to take it out until it was truly needed. I said that I would pee in the “hat” (a plastic thing that catches the pee in the toilet so they can regulate how much my kidneys were actually working.) This was all in a span of a few days.

Because of my condition, I was always in the room nearest to the nurse’s station. I went from being able to exercise to becoming breathless just to sit up in bed.

When it came for them to deliver me (because the only way that I would get better is for my baby to come out) they weighed me and then I even got to have a bath. I was so full of fluid that I could barely bend my legs to get into the tub. I was practically drowning in my own fluid and I never really new how sick I was.

They had to poke my spine nine times before they got it partly right. But when the freezing of the spinal still did not work, they decided to tilt the operating table so the freezing moved to the right area for them to operate. They could not put me under because of how critical my condition was.

Jakob was born 3:04 a.m. weighing a measly 3 pounds 6 ounces, and after he peed and pooed on the nurse, he was whisked away to NICU and then things just happened in a flurry. I suddenly could not breath, my lungs started to freeze. My husband was sent out of the operating room as they prepared to intubate me. When they finally got the situation under control, I was sent to the recovery room with extra watch from the nurses. Towels wrapped around my head, because I had instant headaches from the doctors puncturing my spine (every time the needle went in my spine, a bubble of air comes out and causes spinal headaches).

I suffered with spinal headaches for months after that, and I eventually lost all the excess fluid and became skin and bones, very sickly looking. I was given from a friend a product called Relive, and this helped me on the road to recovery. I was pumping my breast milk for Jakob, and every day whenever I went to visit him in the hospital (even though it was over 1 hour away from our house) I would bring them the breast milk.

Jakob stayed in the NICU for 2 weeks, and then he was transferred to a hospital closer to our house with a Level 2 nursery, where he stayed there for 3 1/2 weeks. He has had many ups and downs, a couple of minor surgeries, and he is a healthy happy 5 1/2 year old now.

Anna Snyder is a mother of 3 beautiful children. Her birth experiences make her the person that she is today. She loves everything to do with maternity and the gift of pregnancy, and she also has an online store for expectant mothers. It is Your One Stop Online Maternity Clothing And Accessories Shop

So, the question will arise when we are expecting, or just given birth, and that question is whether or not we choose to breast or bottle feed our new little one.

We quite often have a birth plan, and in the process of making this birth plan, we decide this. Unfortunately, we can’t see the future, and so we don’t really quite know the outcome of this. Sometimes our bodies don’t quite cooperate with our minds and what we think is right.

There are many situations that stipulate what we as women will choose. Multiple births tend to lean towards the bottle feeding, but some mom’s do both. Single births, depending on complications as well, will help with the decision whether or not the mom is going to breast feed.

Prematurity is another situation of this instance. The mother may be going through way to many things to be able to breast feed, or in some instances, may not even come, or the baby may not have his or her sucking reflex and the mother will have to pump to provide the milk for her baby. My son was born 8 weeks premature, and I had to get my milk to come in by constantly pumping. He didn’t quite have his sucking reflex yet, so he couldn’t stimulate my milk to come in normally. I wanted him to have my milk because of the antibodies in the breast milk.

Although breast milk was the best for my son because of his prematurity, and the antibodies would ward off any extra germs that he could have picked up, if I had chosen formula to feed him then he would have gotten stronger faster and gained weight faster. This is not necessarily true for all cases, but for mine it was because for some reason, my breast milk did not have enough fat in it to help him gain weight. So, I ended up having to add more calories with a substance called human milk fortifier, supplied by the hospital. And, he also had to have liquid vitamins on top of all that, producing extra work for me. But, at the time he was my only child and so I could devote all my time to him.

And devote my time I did. He had such a sensitive tummy when he was little. I would pump for him, then I would bottle feed him the breast milk (mind you, it took him an hour to drink 1 ounce) and sometimes he would throw up everything and I would have to start again. I only gave him my breast milk at the time because I believed that breast is best. Not all moms who have other children will have time and patience to do this.

My other two children were easier in a sense because they were born full term with a suck reflex. I nursed my second son for 9 months and my daughter for 11 months. In that process, I had mastitis tons of times and that is very painful. I think that if I had known all the complications involved in nursing, I may not have done it. But, like I said, every case is different.

Formula today has come a long way. Sometimes mothers choose it over breast feeding because of its convenience. Breast feeding can be convenient too, but not when you are going out and want to leave the little one with someone else.

I think that the best thing for this day and age is for the mom to be able to do both, breast feed and bottle feed the baby. That way the baby can have the breast milk, and the mom can take a break and give the baby a bottle as well. (Time for bonding with Dad!!)

Some women may not be able to breast feed and I think that it is okay. These moms need to stop being frowned upon because they choose to formula feed their baby. There are tons of medical cases and reasons why they choose to bottle feed and formula feed, and I think that it is a matter of choice. The baby is still being fed, and is happy and just as healthy as the breast fed baby.

So whatever you choose to do, take day by day. Don’t let anyone tell you that you did the wrong thing, or made the wrong decision. You as a mom know what is best for your baby, and for yourself.

Anna Snyder is a young mother to 3 beautiful children. Her birth experiences have made her who she is today. Come and visit her online store, it is filled with Beautiful Swimwear For Beautiful Women!