It was a long and terrifying time, but we’re finally home and resting. My birth experience was frankly traumatic due to the fact that I was sick with COVID at 35 weeks.

On September 14th, almost a week after testing positive for the virus, I thought one or both of us were going to die. I only had 40% survival odds with how severely sick I was. I went into preterm labor and had placental abruption, which caused me to lose a lot of blood and have an emergency c-section. The contractions were awful, 2 minutes apart and lasting almost a minute each. We had to drive an hour and a half to the hospital as the one in our small town is not equipped to handle labor/delivery (they couldn’t even find their Doppler to check baby’s heart rate).

When we got to the hospital, I knew they were going to need to do an emergency cesarean. They put the fetal monitor on me, and it was physically painful, I was screaming for them to take it off me. At first, his heartbeat was okay, I was 4.5cm dilated, but I knew there was no way I was going to be able to try naturally with how much pain the fetal monitor caused - I knew something was wrong and when his heart rate dropped, I refused to allow them to break my water and demanded the surgery. It was about 8 minutes from the time we got to labor and delivery to the time they wheeled me in for the c-section. I didn’t have time for the epidural so they had to put me under. My husband was also positive for COVID so he couldn’t be in the room. We both missed his birth.

My son, despite being 5lbs2oz and 36 weeks gestational age, was in the NICU being treated like a 32 week premature baby. He’s so strong, he improved steadily every single day and thankfully tested negative for the virus. The entire time, I was separated from him. My mom was the only one to see my son until my husband’s own quarantine was over. I’m so glad they were able to be with him in the NICU while I couldn’t be there for him.

I was hospitalized after the surgery. I was on 12L oxygen, multiple medications for pain, meds for covid, had to have multiple tests and scans for my lungs and heart. Thankfully after a few days, I started to improve, and I did get released the same day as my baby, though hours later. It took a couple more days of recovering in a hotel before we were ready to go home.

I’m still not 100% between the surgery and the virus, but I am so grateful to be alive and be with my family. As soon as the recommended 90 days are up, I’ll be getting my Covid vaccine. I wish I had gotten it while pregnant, but I was hesitant. After nearly dying and the traumatic experience I had, I wish I could go back and just do it, but I can’t. It’ll be a while before I can recover from the trauma, but every day has been better than the last and that’s all I can hope for right now.

Little man is now 13 days old and we were able to establish exclusive breastfeeding basically immediately thanks to my amazing mom. She’s been like a live-in lactation specialist. If it weren’t for her, it’s very possible I wouldn’t have been able to do it, but we’re thriving. I’m producing more than enough to feed him, he’s an amazingly patient baby who learned to latch quickly, and I’m even able to pump a little (which was all I could do in the hospital).