Birth report: emergency c-section due to cytomegaly

I met my current partner in 2001. It quickly became clear that we would like to have children together, since we were both over 30. I also got pregnant relatively quickly. We couldn’t believe our luck. My friend would have liked to wrap me in cotton wool.

I have donated plasma for years. When donating, they were always very interested in my blood, since I have the blood group characteristic rhesus negative . Like most other people, my partner Steffen is rhesus positive. For this reason, I was classified as a high- risk pregnancy .

In addition, my blood values ​​were constantly borderline. So I was on sick leave for the whole pregnancy. I’ve always been a very active person. It almost drove me insane: sitting at home and always taking it easy, taking it easy, taking it easy.

Inexplicable pain

In the seventh month I developed inexplicable upper abdominal pain, a pain I had not known before. He came in the middle of the night. My friend quickly drove me to the clinic. My blood values ​​were in the basement: I was put on a drip with antibiotics. I wasn’t in contractions, just pain. Pain that also attacked me mentally so much that I now know five years later that it was the worst and most borderline situation that I had to go through in my life.

Every day an ultrasound was done, tests over and over again. I had an enlarged liver and an enlarged spleen. The nurse repeatedly asked “how much I would drink”. I got all the tests you can think of. The heart ultrasound was the worst. When the contrast agent was injected, I thought I would burst. After two weeks the head of the clinic came and said: “YOU HAVE CYTOMEGALY ”, a kind of herpes virus.

Almost everyone carries this virus. However, it is very dangerous during pregnancy as the baby can become deaf or blind. Or cannot survive the delivery if the lungs have not developed properly. Chronic kidney failure, a number of serious things that shorten life or make it impossible in the first place. Clap, smack, I thought I’d drop dead!

Two possibilities

A professor at the clinic said: “There are two possibilities: There is a drug that has not been tested on pregnant women. Or we don’t do anything.” But there would be no guarantee that we could save our Elijah. He gave me a day to think it over. My friend was speechless, he couldn’t say anything. I was out of my mind. My arms, my hands were blue from the antibiotics, thick and so punctured that not a bit of white showed through. I agreed with great concern and so I was put in a ZVK, a central nerve catheter. Then the chief doctor came by again. He said there could be side effects because it is a very aggressive drug.

Terrible two weeks

120 ml in the morning and 120 ml in the evening. I was also given “Faustan” and several painkillers to calm me down. Each time the drip was run through, the 120ml was set for an hour to spare me. Every time sweating, tachycardia, dizziness and the worst of all: the bladder, the intestines and the stomach have emptied at the same time. I was so disgusted with myself. It went like this for two weeks. At first I was so confused, the clinic chaplain came and wanted to accompany me. For what reason? Why? I didn’t need one. At that point, no one knew if our baby would make it. The values ​​improved. After two weeks it was planned that I would be allowed to go home for Christmas with reservations. Seven days later, my son was due to be taken by caesarean section due to my poor health.

Emergency caesarean section for cytomegaly

The anesthesiologist came at 9 p.m. in the evening and tried to persuade me to use an epidural for the caesarean section . I didn’t want any, for fear of noticing what damage our son had during the caesarean section. The end of the song: the man wrote me so full of lyrics that I went into labor during the night and had an emergency c-section in the early morninghad to be carried out. Steffen was with me. He saw Elia for two seconds, then he went to the intensive care unit: Our son weighed 3200 grams and was seven weeks premature. A liter of water retention from the powerful drugs and he was completely survivable except for the obvious. I was allowed to see him for the first time after five days. After a total of five weeks in hospital, I was finally allowed out. I had great difficulty bonding with him . After six weeks we were allowed to take him home with us. He is almost five years old and, thank God, has developed in line with his age.

review

Even when I’m writing this, I’m crying because it still touches me so much. When Elia was a few months old, I trained to be a hospice attendant. The lecturer, the clinic chaplain and I now help people who need me.

It was an experience in my life that almost broke me… broke me… but with the help of all the staff, the doctors, the nurses, my dear friend, my dear Katarina, my in-laws and countless friends, I made it through and I did I’m infinitely happy that I can and may live. Thank you for reading.