by Brittany Staplefield-Lee, Board Member, Pro-Choice North Carolina
Just a few weeks ago, I gave birth to my daughter.
Although I was excited to meet her and grow our family, my labor and delivery experience was far from what I had envisioned. What started as a minor headache and feeling "off" led to what I thought would be a quick check at labor and delivery triage, only to suddenly be told I had severe preeclampsia and was being immediately induced at just 35 weeks pregnant.
This news caught me completely off guard. Within the span of a few hours, I went from wrapping up my workday and cooking dinner for my family to being admitted to the hospital, receiving countless medications, and having conversations about steroids to support my baby's lung development and being placed on a magnesium drip to prevent seizures.
My care team acted quickly and took my symptoms seriously. Looking back, their ability to make decisions without hesitation is a big part of why I'm here writing this, and why my daughter is here too.
After four grueling days of labor, hooked up to countless monitors and IVs, my daughter arrived. But instead of the moment I had imagined — her being placed on my chest — she was immediately taken to the NICU team.
While the doctors continued to work on me, I heard words like "needs oxygen," "low APGAR," and "grey and floppy." My husband stood in the room, halfway between my hospital bed and the NICU warmer, looking back and forth between his wife, his daughter, and a dozen medical professionals working quickly to stabilize both of us.
After a few minutes that felt like hours, a nurse brought her over to me and briefly removed her oxygen mask so I could see her face for the first time. Then they rushed her to the NICU. I will never forget the stark contrast: the excitement of getting ready to push, the room full of doctors and nurses when she arrived, and then the silence and emptiness after she was wheeled away — and how strange it felt to be done delivering and not have my baby with me.
The first four days postpartum were a blur of fear, exhaustion, and uncertainty. My preeclampsia was difficult to stabilize, and I was overwhelmed by constant blood pressure checks, medication changes, and normal postpartum recovery, all while trying to care for a newborn who was being closely monitored for jaundice and low blood sugar.
But even in the middle of that chaos, I knew something was true. We were incredibly lucky.
I had access to consistent prenatal care and a medical team focused on evidence-based care. My symptoms were taken seriously, and I was included in informed decision-making about my delivery. I delivered in a hospital equipped to handle complications. My providers were able to act immediately — without delay and without restriction.
Not everyone in North Carolina has that.
And that's the part I haven't been able to stop thinking about.
When we talk about maternal health, it can be easy to think about policy in an abstract way. It can feel disconnected from real people and real situations. But that's what policies do — they change people's lives for better and for worse. They determine what care looks like in moments like mine and countless others across our state.
North Carolina continues to face a maternal health crisis. We have high maternal mortality rates, with stark disparities that disproportionately impact Black women and those living in rural communities. At the same time, access to care is becoming more fragile.
Since the passage of the 12-week abortion ban in 2023, providers across our state are navigating new legal risks, administrative burdens, and constraints on care. Even when laws include exceptions, the reality is often far more complicated. Vague language and fear of liability can delay care in the very moments when delay is most dangerous.
Sitting in that hospital room, I couldn't stop thinking about this. The kind of care that saved me — the ability for providers to act quickly based on medical need — is the same kind of care that is increasingly entangled in legal uncertainty. In these situations, uncertainty leads to delay, and delay can lead to death.
This is why the work of Pro-Choice North Carolina matters so deeply to me, not just as a board member, but as a patient who has experienced how quickly things can change and how critical it is to access high-quality reproductive health care without restrictions.
For me, that reproductive health care looked like maternity care. But for others it can mean access to preventive screenings for cervical cancer, contraceptive care, STI testing and treatment, and access to abortion care.
When any part of our reproductive health care system is limited, the impact shows up in real moments, for real people, often when the margin for error is small and the stakes are high.
My story is not unique in what happened medically. Preeclampsia, while life-threatening, is not rare. Complications for preterm babies are not rare.
But having access to the care you need when things don't go according to plan — that is still far too rare for many people in our state.
In the weeks since my daughter and I came home from the hospital, I've had more time to process everything. I've replayed those moments — the shift in my diagnosis, the delivery, and the first time I saw her being triaged by the NICU team instead of in my arms.
And I keep coming back to this.
We were able to leave the hospital together, healthy and safe.
That outcome was not inevitable. It was made possible by access—to care, to providers, and to a system that, in that moment, worked the way it should.
Every family in North Carolina deserves that.
They deserve to have their symptoms taken seriously.
They deserve timely, evidence-based care.
They deserve providers who can act without hesitation or fear.
They deserve access to high-quality reproductive health care with their best interest being prioritized.
The care that saved me and helped bring my daughter home should be the baseline for everyone in our state.
That's what's at stake.
And that's why I'm proud to stand with Pro-Choice North Carolina. This work is about protecting those moments when everything changes — and making sure more families get the chance to have the ending we did.
