the trouble with always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind. - g.k. chesterton

so i've never felt as much as i do with this pregnancy . . . pregnancy is SCARY. i am glad to say however, that we have been blessed to have healthy babies and pretty healthy pregnancies, but when the slightest thing goes wrong, all you can do is worry. worry worry worry and then worry some more. you have this little life wiggling inside of you and it is completely up to you to keep your body in close to perfect health to keep things going right. 

i've had little complications along the way with my two other babies. with my first i was under constant stress because i was going through a divorce with my first husband, nearly the entire pregnancy. on top of that, because of the way i had been living my life prior to getting pregnant with him, on one ill-fated night, i was raped. 


{you're probably thinking that it's not my fault that i was raped,
 but in fact, in this situation, 
it was my fault for doing what i was doing and putting myself
 in the place i was in that night.
i'm at peace with it now and very seldom do i think of it.} 


the men were african american and because of the time that it happened, we did not know if my son was my husbands or the rapists. that was a pregnancy that was extremely bittersweet. i went into preterm labor with him at 34 weeks, but they were able to stop the contractions with intravenous terbutaline. i was induced at 38 weeks, labored for 25 hours, pushed for 2 and a half and after failure to progress, he was taken by emergency c-section. 

with my next baby, things were a bit smoother. she was a honeymoon baby (ha!) and although we had stress from my husband losing his job shortly after we were married, i was happy. i started spotting in the second trimester. we spent many nights taking trips to labor and delivery and was put on bedrest on and off throughout the pregnancy. i was scheduled for a c-section at 39 weeks and ended up going into labor with her at 37. when we got to the hospital, i was sure they would send me home, but in fact, i was dilated to about 7 cm and didn't even know it! i was uncomfortable, but had NO CLUE i was in labor! by the time they got me back for the c-section, i was at a full 10 cm! 

often, i've wished that i would have fought the c-section tooth and nail and demanded a VBAC, regardless of whether the doctor approved it or not. HOWEVER, if i wouldn't have gotten the c-section, they wouldn't have discovered what a chop job my first OB had done on my body. my scarring was terrible. part of it had adhered to my bladder, there were spots on my bowel that were messed up and the primary incision was not in the right place. also, if i had ended up having her VBAC, there was a good chance (because of how overly well my body scars) i would have had a uterine rupture and put both my precious baby girl and my life in danger.

now for the really scary part. it didn't come until AFTER i had Chloe. i was released from the hospital earlier than normal because i was doing so well recovering. i was up and about, walking fine and taking good care of the baby, so they let me go. i went about a week, had the staples removed and then started having a lot of pain in the incision area. then the chills and hot flashes set in. one night i was running a fever of 104 degrees. i called and spoke to the doctor on call who happened to be the OBGYN i had seen through the duration of the pregnancy (she was not, however, the doctor who performed the surgery). i should have known not to listen to her when she was more busy playing with her cats and telling me about them rather than listening to what was going on with me. she told me in the calmest of voices that i most likely had the swine flu and to avoid going to the hospital because i might make other people sick. she told me this long story about how one of her patients had just had a c-section and had been busy throwing up and was miserable, all because she had the swine flu. i asked her what i was supposed to do if it wasn't the flu and she said to just stay at home and intermittently take the highest dose of ibuprofen and highest of acetaminophen and they should work to bring down my fever. she would rather me not go in if i didn't have it so that i wouldn't get the swine flu from someone who did have it. as the night progressed, the fever and hot/cold flashes got worse and worse. my husband was in the other room taking care of our children when i had this EXTREME pain set in around the left side of my lower abdomen and back. i inched my way to the bathroom and tried to make myself throw up. i was sure that i had overdosed on the motrin and tylenol (thanks to my foolish doctor). after a few successful attempts i sat on the toilet. there was no relief from throwing up. i was still in excruciating pain. then the scariest part. i started SPRAYING blood out from my back end. i screamed for my husband. eventually he heard me and called 911. when they arrived at our apartment, my fever was gone, but i was having extreme chills. i told them about the maximum doses my doctor told me to take and they started to act weird. they started asking me strange questions, along the lines of they thought i was trying to off myself. then worst of all . . . THEY MADE ME WALK DOWN A FLIGHT OF STAIRS. they made me climb onto the gurney with barely any assistance, then wheeled me hard over the bumps and cracks in the sidewalk and road to the ambulance. when we got to the hospital, i was up to 106 degree fever and began losing consciousness. i was put into a quarantine room and was pretty much on my death bed. no one could come in the room unless they were wearing masks. no one knew what was wrong with me. 

after a blood transfusion and loads of MRI's and CT's, it was determined that i had an abscess under the left side of my incision. at this point they weren't sure what it was full of, but after spotting the abscess they saw it had ruptured and that my body was in sepsis. i started losing kidney function and couldn't control my bowels and was throwing up what looked like tar. they inserted a port in my neck and from that was put on hemodialysis. 

they layed me on a MRI bed and made me lay on my stomach (which was probably one of the worst things ever) and inserted a needle that went from my rear end into my abdomen to suck the fluid from the abscess out for testing. all of which i felt the entire time because the numbing medication didn't work on me. the fluid tested positive for MRSA. here is the Wikipedia definition of it, in case you are not familiar :

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a bacterium responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections in humans. It may also be called multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or oxacillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (ORSA).

MRSA is, by definition, any strain of Staphylococcus aureus that has developed resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics which include the penicillins (methicillin, dicloxacillin, nafcillin, oxacillin, etc.) and the cephalosporins.

MRSA is especially troublesome in hospitals and nursing homes where patients with open wounds, invasive devices and weakened immune systems are at greater risk of infection than the general public.

not exactly the funnest thing to have, right? they tried all sorts of antibiotics and finally inserted a drainage tube below my belly button to remove the fluid from the abscess. i was put into ICU during this time and ended up having a tube inserted through my nose that went into my stomach because i couldn't control my vomiting. i was awake the entire time and had to assist in getting it in, by means of sucking water through a straw and swallowing as they shoved the tube down my nose into my throat and beyond. it was awful.

 i still continued to vomit and during one of the bouts, my husband happened to be out of the room and the stress of the vomiting basically killed me for a short time. i flat lined. nurses rushed in. i don't remember much more about that. 

i was in the hospital for about a month, but it felt more like a decade. i missed a chunk of my little girl's newborn life and i still feel jipped as far as that goes. i'll never get that time back with her. 

on the other hand, i'm very lucky to be alive. the doctor who had originally performed the c-section worked hard to save my life. there wasn't anything he could do medically because at this point it was out of his hands, but he came in whenever he had down time to make sure the other doctors and staff were doing everything they could to keep me alive. he even came in on his days off.

luckily, lightning usually doesn't strike twice, so hopefully i will never have MRSA again, but to tell you the truth, this entire thing has made me a bit of a hypochondriac. i am terrified of all the 'what ifs'. one thing i forgot to mention in my story above is that we went to the ER once before i was taken in and after a few blood tests and scans i was told that it was just a simple pleural effusion ( a buildup of fluid between the layers of tissue that line the lungs and chest cavity) and that i just needed to use my expectant spirometer more frequently. lovely, right?

so to be completely honest, i do not trust doctors. i'm terrified of going in and being sent home because you NEVER know what is going on inside of your body and most of the time, NEITHER DO THEY. you can go with your gut and go in and be checked, but you have a 50/50 chance (if even that) of them truly finding out what is wrong. after all, they are only human and humans make mistakes. 

to make matters worse, my faithful and wonderful OBGYN retired from practice to be the head of one of the government funded health plans here in Phoenix, which is great for him, but a HUGE bummer for me. when people haven't been in a situation as traumatic as what i went through, they just don't understand your fears and concerns. i do however, think i picked a good doc, i just hope he doesn't look at me as a money sign. that sounds terrible . . .

so i guess the truth is that pregnancy isn't the only thing that scares me. it's the outcome. life is so precious and you really never know when the sand will run out.


for more information on MRSA, please visit:
StopMRSAnow!