I don’t remember anything about giving birth to my son, Callahan. But by talking with my husband and my doctors, and pouring over more than 6,000 pages of medical records, I pieced together that day, when I nearly died.
Callahan was my first baby, and at 40 weeks and two days I was induced because my blood pressure was high. It was a normal, slow induction for a first time mom, but after two and a half days I was finally ready to push.
I told the nurse I didn’t feel well, and she thought it was the normal nausea that comes during transition. That’s when I started screaming that something was wrong with my heart. A few seconds later, I passed out. My heart wasn’t beating and I had stopped breathing.
The doctors rushed me to the operating room. Callahan was born just six minutes after the code was called. That speed likely saved both our lives.
Callahan was quickly resuscitated, but my heart stopped again
While doctors were delivering Callahan, another team was working on me. I was still unresponsive. Callahan was born not breathing, but he quickly came to. Doctors told my family, “the baby is fine, but Kayleigh isn’t.”
Doctors restarted my heart, but it stopped again. My OB/GYN recognized that I was having an amniotic fluid embolism, an allergic-like reaction that happens when amniotic fluid enters a mothers’ blood stream. It leads to heart and lung failure, and massive bleeding. I needed 143 units of blood.
I was put on life support, then transferred to another hospital. There, the doctor said he was going to try one last ditch effort to save me — an Impella heart pump. Luckily, it worked so well that within 24 hours I was able to start coming off life support.
Read the full coverage: I almost died during childbirth due to an allergic reaction. I don’t remember my son being born.
