Advocacy: owning your story

I am aware that the days and memories I get to have with my children is not something that women here in the US and those around the world get a chance to have with a preeclampsia diagnosis. This is my own story and I am forever grateful for my medical team and my family. I fully embrace all my preeclampsia survivors and the families that they left behind. You will always be in my thoughts and the reason I keep sharing. 

With news of preeclampsia being in the forefront lately (links below)- and for which I am so grateful and ecstatic over - the word in and of itself takes me back to a place I use to not want to acknowledge. Preeclampsia was my nightmare world. It was this fear that gnawed at me every time I looked at my daughter. During my second pregnancy, I felt like a ticking time bomb and knew that I would eventually (and I did) implode. 

​It has been 7 years since I was diagnosed with Preeclampsia. 7 years since I prayfully, frustratingly bargained my soul and body for a chance to have a healthy preeclampsia-free pregnancy. 7 years since I went on numbingly into the emergency room knowing the end goal: another preeclampsia diagnosis, another premature baby, another NICU stay. This was a fate I was destined to have. Mine and my children's canon event. 

I was fearful of preeclampsia that the anxiety of it almost crushed me. Even though I was diagnosed at 26 weeks in my first pregnancy, I celebrated each week that we passed. It wasn't until my second pregnancy, that I knew the bomb was ticking and set to go off.

And boy, the implosion was nowhere near what I imagined it to be. The intensity and magnitude of it, I will save that story for another day. 

​Suffice it to say that for a long time, I wrestled with my childbirth experiences. I was burdened with guilt about giving my children this legacy. And it took a while to talk about it. It still hurts. Even if I don't remember all the big things, the specifics......my body remembers, and I can feel myself curling inward, tensing and ready for that inevitable weight that'll come and crush me. 

SEVEN years. 

I am amazed at how far my premmies have come. 

I am humbled at my journey to here. 

I am grateful that I had help and support to pick up the pieces of debris left behind. 
I know I'm not 100 % whole. There is and will be the before and after version of myself and the bridge to the past isn't as simple as looking backwards or through a looking glass. There are parts of myself that will never be put back. And that's okay. 
​And our story isn't pretty or perfect.

But it's our story - mine and my children.

​I will be forever grateful for anyone who listens to my story. The story of us. 

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Recent news:
Olympic athlete Tori Bowie died of complications from childbirth : NPR
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Blood test can identify risk for preeclampsia, the leading cause of maternal death | PBS NewsHour

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To hear my story and a chance to listen to several others, please go to Hear her Texas/DSHS Texas: Hear Her Texas | Texas DSHS 

https://youtu.be/DK2T6U4G4ow

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