I am a very healthy, 26 year old woman who had her first baby in August. My pregnancy was going fabulous and picture perfect up until it wasn’t.

At 26 weeks, I developed COVID, mild symptoms. Around 31 weeks I started to feel just pretty blah. Headaches, nausea, and just not feeling like myself. I noticed my heart rate was slower and I was feeling less kicking than normal. I knew something was wrong for sure when I threw up since I hadn’t my entire pregnancy, and my face, hands and feet were swollen. Then the big scare came Monday when I had a migraine, now something was DEFINITELY wrong. My RN friends came over, took my BP and said “You need to go, right now”. My BP was 170/90. My husband and I get to the hospital, and I get admitted until my baby reaches 34 weeks (I was 31w2d).

That Thursday, when I woke up my BP was 190/95 and I was told that baby was coming today and it was no longer safe. They started the god-awful Mag drip and checked babies position. She was breeched so only option was a c-section. My baby girl was born (3lbs 2oz) and sent directly to the NICU. She did marvelous there for 3 weeks and we went home. I on the other hand, had to stay in the hospital for 5 days after labor because of my high BP. I also had a horrible experience on Mag and didn’t see my baby for 2 days after she was born because I couldn’t move or I would pass out. Finally, they found the right dosage of medication to keep my levels down. 800mg of Labetalol 3x a day and 90mg procardia 1x. I. Felt. AWFUL.

Finally after 6 weeks, I was able to stop taking BP meds and I am feeling back to normal at 14 weeks PP. I still have a lot of anxiety thinking about another baby and wonder how much developing COVID led me to having preeclampsia. If you or anyone you know starts feeling different than normal during pregnancy, DO NOT HESITATE to get checked out! My family had no history of preeclampsia and I am an athletic, healthy woman who got struck with the preeclampsia stick and hope that there is more research done to help woman have happy, healthy pregnancies and babies!