My name is Joanne. I am 30 years old and have been married to Alex for 9 years.

Before I became pregnant with my first child 5 years ago I worked in retail management for a store in Knightsbridge, London called Harvey Nichols. I was there for 7 years ( having the privilage to serve Princess Diana a few times. She was very beautiful ). I then left to have my first child, Alexander, who was born at 33 weeks ( 3lbs 11oz ) by caesarean section after suffering from pre-eclampsia. Thankfully both he and I recovered well and he came home after 3 weeks in Special Care.

It took me a while to even consider becoming pregnant again but 3 years later I did. Unfortunately I miscarried at 10 weeks. I thought that that would be the worst that could happen but little did I know what lay ahead.

I became pregnant once more in 1998 and was delighted to get through the 3 month mark with no problems, except terrible nausea. My next hurdle was escaping pre-eclampsia which I thought I was doing successfully until my BP shot up at around 26 weeks. I monitor it myself at home and took myself off to my GP where protein was also found present in my urine. Into hospital I go, devastated. Three weeks later I was still hanging on. Blood results getting slowly worse and BP refusing to go down even with high doses of medication.

At 30 weeks a doppler scan revealed that the blood flow to the baby was being effected so I was given an emergency c-section and our beautiful baby daughter, Grace, was born weighing 2lbs 4oz. She was healthy and breathing on her own. I had been given a series of steroid injections to help improve her lungs.

Grace was doing really well in her first week. Then on her 8th day she was having problems with breathing, possibly due to an infection. Things turned from bad to worse within an hour or so and finally she was given to us where she died in my arms. No cause was ever found.

It has been 10 months since losing Grace and I still hurt deeply. I am still intent on having another baby but am scared stiff. I have been given a 50% chance of getting pre-eclampsia again. I consider myself lucky that I did not suffer physically with pre-eclampsia. I experienced no swelling or pain. I have read other stories of coma or stroke and seizures. I have escaped these twice now. Dare I risk it one more time? Dare I risk losing another baby to prematurity ? Only time will tell.

I am alot better informed now. I am a member of APEC which keeps me in touch with news and research into pre-eclampsia and I am lucky enough to have found this group and all the wonderful ladies on it. I breathed a sigh of relief the day I found this site. Finally a place where I belong.

Nov. '99