8 years ago today

9:35 am on March 25th, 2002....29 weeks, 4 days pregnant....I remember lying in my bed, feeling miserable. I had a hard time breathing, couldn't sleep, couldn't get comfortable.
1:30 pm....My mom came over to my house to pick me up for a doctor's appointment. The day before, a Sunday, I had been released from the hospital. I was there over the weekend with contractions, and had spent three days lying in a hospital bed, with an awful drug called Magnesium Sulfate running through my veins to stop the contractions. The doctor who released me from the hospital told me to make an appointment the following day to see my OB and let him know about my weekend hospital stay.
2:00 pm... I peed in a cup at the doctor's office then waited for Dr. Gray to come into my room. My blood pressure was taken....and it was very high. I had gained over 20 pounds in water weight over the weekend, and I was so swollen. The doctor pressed his finger into my shin, and his finger mark stayed indented in my skin. The protein content in my urine was very high. All these are signs of pre-eclampsia, a very dangerous pregnancy condition from which many mothers have died. "You need to go back to the hospital," he said with a very serious look on his face. I dreaded going back to the hospital. I was just there for three days.
2:30 pm....I arrived at Labor and Delivery, was checked in and given my room. Dr. Henderson, the doc on call, told me that I was going to be in the hospital until I delivered, whether it would be 12 hours or 12 days, I wasn't going to go home. I was so frightened.
3:00 pm....They hooked me up to a catheter, with a plan to collect blood and urine for 24 hours for more testing. For the rest of the day and night, I struggled to get comfortable, and continued to feel like crap. My blood pressure remained dangerously high, and I was scared. I was desperately praying that my babies would stay in my belly and not be born 10 weeks early.