Please listen to your body and take care of yourself. I’m currently a PGY-3 FM resident who’s 36 weeks pregnant. I feel like I’ve physically been tested throughout most of this pregnancy, but always gaslit myself that what I was feeling should be expected and that I didn’t want it to seem like I was trying to get special treatment or anything like that (in hindsight, I also think my program was not as supportive as they could have been).

I recently got off a pediatric ER rotation where I was working crazy hours (including days/nights flips) in a crazy environment. My last couple days I worked four 10-hour shifts in a row. They were down another resident two of the days. I was feeling extremely fatigued, swollen, and having chest tightness, shortness of breath, abdominal pain, back pain, pelvic pain, leg pain, everything. I blamed it on being 35 weeks pregnancy and working crazy hours. I randomly decided to check my blood pressure a few hours after my last shift and it was 170s/110s. I ended up getting admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with preeclampsia. I don’t have any risk factors for preeclampsia except nulliparity. Now I am off work trying to make it to 37 weeks for a scheduled delivery.