My name is Sierra. I never expected anything to go wrong with my pregnancy. I was 24 years old, worked out all the time, ate mostly healthy, and I never drank during pregnancy and I don't smoke. I thought I was doing everything right.

Twenty five weeks into my pregnancy, I started to have a pain in my upper right abdomen. It felt like an intense gas bubble. This was my first pregnancy, so I didn't know what was normal and what was not. I pushed it off thinking it was just gas. The only reason I had decided to go into the hospital that night was because I also had trouble breathing. It felt like the pain was just putting too much pressure on my lungs.

I went into the hospital at 2am. Around 2pm I was being flown 2 hours away from my home, no hospital bag packed, to the nearest hospital with a NICU. There I was being pumped full of magnesium. There were IVs all over my arms and I'm not an easy stick. December 4th 2020 at 5:30pm I was being wheeled into the OR to undergo full anesthesia for an emergency C section to HELLP Syndrome / Preeclampsia. When I woke up I didn't feel any different. It's like the baby was still there. I can't describe the empty feeling of knowing the baby wasn't actually there. I didn't get to see her the first couple of days. I don't think anyone can prepare themselves for that first look at their baby in an isolette, with a breathing tube down their throat and all kinds of lights and wires going into this tiny little baby. She looked like a newborn baby bird, so small, featherless, and fragile. Her skin was transparent and she would twitch. As if it couldn't get any harder, she was diagnosed with a grade 4 brain bleed.

We spent 4 months in the NICU. These little preemies are fighters though, and she fought her way through everything she went through. She is now 6 months old actual 3 months old adjusted and she is THRIVING. The beginning looks so grim and I remember falling into a depression. I honestly thought she wouldn't make it. Here we are though 6 months into her life and the doctors love to comment on how strong and smart she is. That grade 4 brain bleed was my biggest scare but she is pushing through it all!