I was 35 weeks pregnant with my second baby when I started having problems. I couldn't sleep one night because I was hurting between my shoulders and had an awful headache.

The next morning I called the nurse. She told me to take cold medicine, that I was probably getting sick with a cold. Something told me to check my blood pressure. Sure enough, it was through the roof.

So I went off to the hospital. When I got there they started an IV, of course. My blood pressure was still very high. The doctor came around that afternoon and told me that I had pre-eclampsia. I was very swelled in my face. He could tell by just looking at me.

That was the beginning of a three-day-long adventure. They were giving me magnesium sulfate in the IV for my blood pressure. Then after a lot of blood work they saw that my potassium and iron was low. They gave me five bags of potassium during my stay.

The next day I was moved to another larger room for labor. The doctor wanted to induce because the only cure for pre-eclampsia is delivery. At about 4:30 a.m. the following day they started Pitocin.

I was in labor 10 hours and only four pushes and little Parker Laine was born at 4 pounds, 11 ounces. I couldn't hold him except for a minute. They had to take him to the nursery to make sure everything was fine with him. We were very lucky. He was on oxygen only for a few hours. He also had an IV with antibiotics in his tiny foot for four days. He stayed in the hospital for seven days.

When he got to come home with us was the best day of our lives. He is now 6 pounds, 7 ounces at 5 weeks and doing great. Pre-eclampsia is a very serious disease, and we are very lucky we didn't have any more problems than we did.