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I was so ecstatic when I found out I was pregnant for the first time. I wanted nothing more than to be a mother. I did everything I thought was right during my pregnancy. I tried to eat healthy, avoided caffeine, etc. All the while I was becoming ENORMOUS. My doctor was concerned about my weight gain at about 7 months along. I had started to swell, mostly in my hands and feet, but some swelling throughout all of my body. My blood pressure started to bounce. One minute it was high, the next it would be fine. He checked my urine regularly for the sure sign of preeclampsia, but no protein was showing up.

One morning, at 36 weeks pregnant, I woke up and decided to go online and chat with my Mom if she was online. She wasn't, but I continued to play around on the computer. As I was sitting there, I kept thinking the right half of my face feels funny. This nagged at me for several minutes and I finally pulled my enormous body up off the chair and went into the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and it was then that I realized, that half of my face was not moving! I looked like I had had a stroke. I felt fine, didn't feel any different than I had all through the pregnancy, but half of my face did not move. I couldn't blink that eye, when I moved my mouth my lips did not move on that side. When I smiled, that half of my mouth just drooped. I was horrified! My mother's family has a long history of strokes. The strokes had been in family members many years older than I was, but that was all I could think.
I walked to the phone to call my Mom and I thought, she is 500 miles away. The only thing I would do is make her worry to death. I paced the house wondering what I should do. Should I go straight to the emergency room? Should I call my husband and make him come home from work? I finally decided the one thing I had to do was to call my OB. When I told him what was going on he wanted to see me immediately. So I called my husband at work and let him know what was going on, assuring him that I felt fine and could drive myself to the doctor.
When I arrived at the doctor I was taken back immediately, which gave me cause for more concern, because we all know that doesn't happen at a doctor's office. He examined me and concluded that I probably had Bell's Palsy. The swelling I was having had pushed onto a nerve in my face causing the loss of facial movement. Also, this was the day that the protein showed up in my urine. It all came very suddenly without any warning.
The doctor did admit me to the hospital and I spent the next 24 hours with a monitor attached to me for my son. Thank God he was showing no signs of distress whatsoever. I then spent the next 6 days laying in the hospital having three thirty-minute monitoring sessions per day. The nurses also closely monitored my fluid intake and output. Then, when I reached 37 weeks I was induced and gave birth to a very healthy baby boy.
It took a few more weeks for the facial movement to return, but I would have lived the rest of my life like that as long as my baby was healthy. I never understood that kind of love until this whole experience.
So, expecting Moms out there, don't ignore the swelling. Some is natural, but be careful preeclampsia can come on very suddenly.

Learn more about this author, Bec Y.
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