Hi ladies, this is my first post since 2017. I wanted to see if anyone has had any similar situations to mine or even just some advice for the way I feel.

Long story short, i found out I was pregnant in September, I have lupus which is most likely the reason I developed preeclampsia. I do not feel like the doctors monitored me as closely as they could which is another reason I feel guilt. I am 22 years old.

I woke up at 33 weeks exactly and my face looked like I was stung by a bee. I felt like absolute shit for weeks leading up to this, headaches, swollen red legs, fatigue and my doctor just told me to drink more water. I’m not kidding you. My hands were so swollen I couldn’t even hold a pencil in either of my hands they were so swollen. When I went into triage at L&D at my hospital, I was dilated 3 cm with over 10k units of protein in my urine and having active contractions. My BP was 181/106.The nurses said I had one of the most severe cases of edema they have ever seen. You can figure at this point, I was admitted until I delivered at 33 w 6 days because I was going into kidney and liver failure, my blood pressure was uncontrollable and there were multiple times I thought i was going to have a seizure. This is when I was diagnosed with HELLP and it was decided I would be induced early. I was on mag the whole time up to delivery and all day after I delivered. After delivery they still could not control my BP and I think this was due to them telling me to relax constantly, and I had a nurse tell me I needed to calm down or I would have a stroke and would leave my baby in the NICU without a mother. I still hear her saying that in my head every single day and it has been 2 months since I’ve delivered.

Anyways, I have a lot of feelings of guilt, anxiousness over my son and I having to go to the hospital or doctor for any reason, and I am anxious over any little symptom i have and I just want to see… has anyone else felt this way and when does it get better? What helps? Or am I just crazy… I’m sorry for the long post. I just really needed to talk about this and i figured this is a safe place. Also… any success stories with baby #2 having lupus and severe preeclampsia? We are not planning anytime soon but it’s hard not to think about when it’s the first thing ANYONE asks us. Thank you all for just listening to my story, you are all amazing survivors of this shitty thing called preeclampsia!