I was 20 years old when I almost died. I just didn't know it at the time... I knew about preeclampsia before my OB brought it up because women in pregnancy groups had shared their stories. I started having high blood pressure at 28 weeks. Blacking out every time I stood up. Seeing dots. Headaches that wouldn't stop. I gained 10 pounds in one week.

At 37 weeks I was admitted and induced. My platelets crashed to 72,000. My urine protein exceeded 2,000 mg/dL... it was so high the lab couldn't fully measure it. My red blood cells were being destroyed. My LDH peaked at 691, nearly three times the upper limit of normal. I had fluid around my heart, fluid around my left lung, and a leaking heart valve. HELLP syndrome on top of severe preeclampsia.

Night 1 a nurse placed pillows on each side of my bed. She told me it was in case I seized in my sleep. I processed that alone in the dark while my husband laid asleep..

After delivery I was on a magnesium drip for 24 hours to prevent seizures. By the time it was over I hadn't ate for 48 hours. My vision was so blurry I couldn't see my baby in the bassinet beside me. He slept next to me for 2 days and I was too sick to hold him.

Nobody ever told me how serious it was. I went home after 6 days, still on blood pressure medication, and tried to move on.

Four years later I was pregnant again. No specialist. No baby aspirin. My blood pressure was taken over my puffer jacket every single appointment because their cuff was too big. The day before induction they found my left kidney was swollen. I'm 26 now. I believe I developed POTS after my first pregnancy and have never received a proper cardiac workup. Heart disease runs through my entire maternal family.. Pacemakers, defibrillators, cardiac arrests in people in their 20s. Women with a preeclampsia history have up to 4 times the risk of high blood pressure and double the risk of heart disease and stroke. I only learned all of this recently from a post I saw by the Preeclampsia Foundation.

My husband and I have made the decision to not have any more children. Not because we don't want them but because we genuinely fear I wouldn't survive another pregnancy...I was never told it was that serious. But it was. It's hard to grieve the pregnancies I didn't get to experience properly and the ones I never will.