It felt like a minor miracle when Bekah Bischoff discovered she was pregnant again. Years of infertility, painful surgeries for stage IV endometriosis, and the harsh diagnosis of aggressive PCOS had nearly crushed her hope. Doctors had told her the odds were slim, but against every expectation, she conceived. Her heart swelled when she learned she was having a boy. She imagined his laughter, tiny socks, and soft weight in her arms. She had no idea that this pregnancy would nearly cost both of them their lives.
From the beginning, something felt wrong. Bekah was bone-tired, not just the usual kind of pregnancy exhaustion, but the deep ache that lives in your bones. Everyone around her brushed it off. She had a toddler; they said, of course, she was exhausted. The nausea, the swelling, the strange weight gain that didn’t match how little she ate, all of it dismissed as typical pregnancy symptoms. Even when she woke one night in Florida, choking from severe heartburn, her concerns were waved away with over-the-counter advice. Bekah trusted her body, but everyone else thought she was worrying too much.
Two days before her son’s birth, she was in agony. Every inch of her body hurt. Her blood pressure was higher than usual, but not alarming to anyone except her. Her doctor ordered labs, though even that took effort. Her veins were hard to find, her energy almost gone, but something in her told her to push through. The next morning, the call came that changed everything. The voice on the other end told her she needed to go in immediately. Bekah already knew. She hadn’t felt Henry move. A mother knows when something is deeply wrong.
At the hospital, the lights were dim, the air heavy. No one would say much, but she could read it in their faces. When her water finally broke, it wasn’t water at all. It was blood. Every fear she’d pushed aside came crashing down. The team moved quickly, and by some grace, her care provider made the decision that likely saved her life. A C-section would have meant uncontrollable bleeding. Her platelets were dangerously low, her body breaking down under the weight of undiagnosed pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome. Bekah clung to consciousness and faith, whispering silent pleas for her baby to live.
Through unbearable pain, she delivered Henry. Two pushes, pure willpower, and he was here, breathing, pink and perfect. The trauma didn’t end with his birth, though. Bekah’s body was fragile, her blood pressure volatile. She spent the next week fighting to stay alive, hooked to magnesium sulfate to keep seizures at bay. Every small victory felt like a miracle. She was grateful for her medical team, but the emotional scars were deep. She had nearly died, and that truth followed her long after she left the hospital.
In the years that followed, Bekah carried the quiet weight of survival. People would remind her that God was good and that she and Henry were lucky to be alive. And she agreed, but she also knew that surviving a traumatic birth wasn’t the same as healing from it. The hysterectomy she’d needed to save her life left her grieving the motherhood she’d lost. Her bones, weakened by the ordeal, reminded her daily of what she’d endured. This was not just a medical emergency. It was trauma, written into her body and heart.
It took time, and the courage to speak, for healing to begin. Something shifted when Bekah became part of a national conversation about maternal mortality. She told her story to USA Today, stood on stages with other survivors, and met women who had walked the same terrifying path. She realized she wasn’t alone. The condition she’d been told was rare wasn’t rare at all. Hundreds of women die each year from pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome, and tens of thousands come close. The United States remains one of the most dangerous developed countries to give birth in, and that truth ignited something fierce in her.
Today, Bekah fights for change. She works alongside maternal health advocates and government leaders to push for better education, awareness, and care. Her story, once a source of pain, has become her purpose. Every night, as she watches Henry’s chest rise and fall in peaceful sleep, she remembers what almost was. She knows her life was spared for a reason. And she has made a promise: to fight for every mother, every child, so that no one else has to experience a traumatic birth that could have been prevented.
