If I’ve been asked once, I’ve been asked a dozen times.
“What did you do differently this time around?”
What they’re really asking is, “Why didn’t you get preeclampsia this time?”
The answer to the question as asked is that I didn’t do anything I “should” have. I ate what sounded good (precious little) instead of eating careful balanced meals like I did with the other two. I barely exercised instead of exercising diligently like I did with the other two. I didn’t plan for or expect a normal birth. If preeclampsia were a matter of human control, I would have been more likely to have gotten it with Beth-Ellen than with the other two.
(Incidentally, the one preventative action with any good evidence behind it is taking a baby aspirin during pregnancy – and I did that with both Louis and Beth-Ellen, with vastly different outcomes.)
The answer to the real question is simple.
God willed it.
It was God’s grace that gave me preeclampsia with Tirzah Mae and Louis – and God’s grace that gave me a normal pregnancy with Beth-Ellen.
What did I do?
Nothing.
God did everything, in His inscrutable wisdom.