For the most part, my pregnancy was pretty uneventful. I was 28 when I found out I was pregnant. I didn't even get morning sickness. My husband and I had been married for three years and this was our first baby. I never missed a prenatal vitamin and went in for all my checkups.

The first indication that something was wrong was at my baby shower, when I was 33 weeks along. I saw pictures of myself after the shower and noticed that my face looked really swollen. Of course, at the time, I just was annoyed because of vanity reasons, not because it even occurred to me that there could be something medically wrong.

About a week after my shower on a Sunday night, I woke up at 2 in the morning. I just didn't feel very good. I thought it was something I had eaten. It started out as just an unsettling feeling in my stomach, and worsened as the night wore on. I didn't want to wake up or worry my husband for what I thought was a stomach bug, so I just walked around the living room, thinking maybe it was a sign that I'd be going into labor soon.

I had learned in our prenatal class that sometimes in late pregnancy you can get sick to your stomach (nauseated, diarrhea, etc.) because that's your body preparing itself for labor. So I assumed that's what was going on. I felt terrible, but I really didn't think the baby was in any kind of danger, because the pain was in the upper part of my stomach, not where the baby was. It was a tightening around my ribs.

Around 5 a.m., I was finally able to get some sleep. I called my doctor first thing that morning to see if I should come in. I spoke with a nurse, who said it was probably a stomach bug, but I know my body best, and if I was concerned, I should come in to get checked out. At the time, I was feeling better and stupidly told them I was fine. What did I know? This was my first baby; I had no idea anything was wrong.

Fast forward three days. My stomach "bug" was long gone and I was feeling great. I was sitting at my desk at work, and I felt what I thought was maybe my water breaking. I went to the bathroom to see, and there was blood. A lot of it. I was taken by ambulance to the hospital. The bleeding was still very heavy and the nurses and doctor didn't know what was going on until they ran some tests and saw that my platelets were very low and blood pressure was very high. I had HELLP.

Within half an hour, they had delivered the baby. They had to do a Cesarean section and put me under general anesthesia so I missed the whole thing (they did let my husband stay, though). My baby was only 3 pounds, 5 ounces when she was born. She was born at 34 weeks and she was small for her gestational age due to a placental infarction. I didn't get to see her until the next afternoon. She was in the NICU for two and a half weeks, but is now over a year and doing great.