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