I am writing this one week + one day after the birth of my son Hudson Henry.

I had shown no signs of high blood pressure, and tested negative for protein in my urine. I didn't show any signs of preeclampsia, and everything was looking normal for my pregnancy.

On Thursday July 28, I went to my ob-gyn to find I was 3cm dilated. She checked me out inside, broke my plug, and started the process of my son coming into the world. I began getting contractions, sporatically for a couple of days. On July 30, at 3:30AM, my partner and I decided to head to the hospital. 

Upon arrival, I was immediately given an epidural. I fell asleep around 5am until 7am, and awoke to tremendous pain. The doctors continued pumping more and more of the medication for the epidural into me, without any relief. Labor wasn't progressing, at 9am I was only 4cm dilated. I was given pitocin to speed along the process towards active labor. The next hour was full of excrutiating pain, I cannot even recall how it felt or anything that went on during that time. At 10am- the doctor checked me, and I was 100% dilated.

It was time to start pushing. We tried for roughly an hour with me laying on my back, and I wasn't making any progress. The baby had only moved about an inch or so. The Doctor told me to turn around and get on all fours, and as I got up- we saw my epidural was disconnected down the line. All of the medication had poured into the mattress. I essentially birthed my son completely naturally.

At 12:00, the doctor decided pushing wasn't doing the job. He fiddled around for a bit, and came to the conclusion he wanted to vacuum my son out. He did this, and at 12:22pm, my son Hudson was born.

I was getting very bad back pain from the epidural, so the Dr. gave me a shot of morphine. 

I myself cannot remember a single thing from that point on, until the evening of August 1st. 

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It was July 31st at 2:30am, when my boyfriend woke up to loud banging noises in our hospital room. He walked over to see I wasn't in the bed- I was beside it, on the floor.

My guard rails were down, and I was seizing on the ground, with my lips purple and my eyes rolled back, foam coming from my mouth. A team of 20 doctors rushed into the room, and took me away.

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When I woke up, there were breathing tubes down my throat. There were nurses around me, removing the tubes, and I had no idea what was going on. I smacked them away, hit and clawed, and they said, "the baby is fine, don't worry". I hadn't even remembered I was pregnant or why I was at the hospital. I reached down to feel my stomach flat and empty.

After many uncomfortable minutes, I finally had the tubes gone and could breathe out of my mouth again without choking. My throat was raw and hurt so much. I looked down to see at least a dozen different needles hooked into my arms, some going into my major arteries. Those are still bruised blue/black/purple as I type this. I had a blood pressure checker on my finger, and a pump on my arm going off and on repeatedly.

I was mentally... not there. I was so high from the medications, and began asking for my boyfriend immediately. I still couldn't remember having the baby: the nurses kept bringing him up but for some reason, I wasn't concerned in that moment. I needed to see my boyfriend and hear what had happened.

He finally came to the room, looking beyond exhausted and terrified, but relieved at the same time.

He hugged me and kissed me and held my hand, and explained everything that had happened.

During the time I was asleep he was either:

a) sitting by my side

b) taking family members to go visit with our son

c) feeding our son/tending to diaper changes with the nurses

d) outside having the occasional cigarette.

It took about an hour, but once I was a bit more conscious, they brought my son in (from what I was told. I cannot remember any of this. I do vividly remember spots here and there, and the room spinning around and around).

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My son was placed on my lap, and I stared down at him for quite some time trying to put all of the pieces together. The doctors had me on fentanyl, and many other strong pain medications.

I do remember the moment I fell completely inlove with him again, staring down at the tiny being I created.

We spent a couple of hours like that before he had to go back to the infant intensive care. He had irregular breathing and was having a hard time feeding- he had a feeding tube in his nose.

My doctor came in at that point.

I learned all the details of what went on.

While I was sleeping (from the morphine), my brain swelled up. My organs started failing, and my face/limbs were beyond swollen. I essentially was dying, everything was starting to fail and stop working on me.

After the doctors found me, they took out all of my piercings/jewellery, and sent me for many scans- MRI, CT scan, and many many more.

Everything was showing Postpartum Preeclampsia, and it was confirmed.

They kept me in a medically induced coma until I stabilized and was responsive to the nurses, who were asking me questions while I was put under- (i.e.: can you squeeze my hand if you can hear me, or I would start shaking and throwing limbs around.. and stopped as soon as someone mentioned my son was okay).

Since this happened, I have experienced EXTREME short-term and long-term memory loss. I don't have any other signs of eclampsia at this point.

Thanyou for reading my story.