Melissa’s Story: Part 1

Written by Afton Mower

This is the first of five posts dedicated to sharing one young mother’s experience with severe preeclampsia and an ultimate delivery of a 27-weeker to save her own life. This is Melissa’s story.

Wow, so I can’t believe it’s been a year since we welcomed our little angel into our family. Thinking back on the experiences we had this past year brings up so many emotions.

I knew something just wasn’t right when I began to have TERRIBLE swelling problems. And I mean terrible. For those of you who remember go ahead and laugh because I find it quite comical myself thinking back on it. My legs literally looked like sausages, my feet were HUGE and I couldn’t even find a pair of shoes that would fit, my face was so swollen that there was no way to even put make up on, and my hands looked like latex gloves that had been blown up. I knew that swelling during pregnancy was normal, but this was so not normal. By the end of the day my feet would be black and blue from the swelling so my husband would try to push all the fluid up out of them each night. Because of all the swelling I had gained 20 pounds in 2 weeks. I was sick to my stomach all the time and could hardly eat anything at all. I had been having terrible headaches and had been seeing white spots in my vision. So quite obviously, something was wrong, and I just knew it. The problem was we had just moved and didn’t have a Dr. yet, so I didn’t know what to do.

Continue to Part 2

Have you had any experiences similar to Melissa’s? Please share in the comments, for Melissa’s benefit and for all of ours. Thank you!

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