Here we go.....I'm gonna start out with the birth of my second daughter..My first labor and delivery was pretty normal.....She is healthy and well. I went to have my second daughter it was an induced labor I had to be there at 5 a.m. By 3:00 p.m. I still had not had her and felt the urge to push.....the nurses said that they would humor me because they said it wasn't time for me to push yet. I pushed and pushed and pushed and no baby....FINALLY, the doctor came in around 5:30 p.m. and started getting prepped and ready to deliver. As I lay on the table I cannot see what is going on because my legs are up getting ready to push.....but later I saw the horror of what was unfolding in front of the camera.....The "Dr" gets all sterile and in his gloves and scrubs....then......he takes off his glasses and starts to clean them on his sterile gown......drops them picks them back up and starts to wipe them off again and drops them once again. Now remember he was supposed to already have been sterile.....he doesn't change his gloves or his scrubs but proceeds to use the forceps on me. The nurses are standing to the side withdrawling something from a vial.....whatever they did made the bottle burst and the shattered glass went all over the room.....I felt it hit my leg but hey U know things happen.....wasn't that worried......then......I started pushing and pushing and more pushing to no avail.....still no baby. The doctor then thought he would use forceps and as you will learn later was a HUGE mistake on his part. I got most everything on video tape which would help me later on.......As time went on you could see in the video the "dr" twisting and turning and pullin and tugging trying to get my baby out. It WAS NOT working....So he said that he was going to do an emergency c-section. By law when you say emergency c-section you have 30-45 minutes in which to do it....

FINALLY an hour and a half later they wheeled me to the operating room to have the "emergency" c-section......That was enough time to give me something they knew they were going to be cuttin me open it was like it was a suprise.....BUT they didnt......Jus started cutting me open with no drugs......It hurt SO SO SO bad I cannot even explain how that felt.....AND the nurse and the anestisist was fighting and arguing about whose responsiblity it was to have the pain meds there.....while I am laying her helpless on this cold hard table getting cut open and worrying that my baby was going to be dead!! Well finally they went and got something but by that time I had wen into shock from the pain.....I felt EVERYTHING up until they pulled my baby out......I stopped breathing and they put a oxygen mask over my face to my horror it wasn't even on!!! I was trying like hell to get a breath just a few....in the meantime I knew my baby was out but there was a deadly silence noone said ne thing.....I was fighting with myself to try and stay alive!!!

FINALLY!!! they noticed that there was no oygen gettin to me( I'm a little confused on this part) I dont know if they bagged me or put a bigger oxygen mask on but it was TOO MUCH air and I caught my breath but still couldnt breathe.....finally i screamed out TAKE IT OFF!!!!!! And they did.....well they had gave me something but almost overdosed me I had no clue what was going on......was my baby dead or alive.....I hadnt heard her cry I didnt know . I would wake up the next day and my family had to tell me what was going on I was SO out of it......She was transferred to a different hospital over an hour away I remained in this hospital.....She was on life support and was doing very badly. I wanted to cry I needed to cry BUT I couldn't something wouldnt let me and it was about to drive me insane. I said something to the nursing staff and they said "oh well we have u on valium" I was like WHAT?!?!?!? Noone told me......I didnit take it after that and was able to cry and vent which I needed to do Soooooooo badly.

I was released from the hospital after 5 days....it appeared that I had an infection so they put me on antibiotics and sent me on my way with an appt. to see the "dr" in 2 weeks.....So I rushed to the hospital where my baby was she looked so horrible was connected to all kinds of tubes and needles poking her.....BUT I was there and so was she I could thank GOD for that.....I was starting to feel ill and started running a high fever around 104´degrees. I noticed that my c-section had come open a little bit and I called the "dr" and told him that I had a fever of 104 and my inscision had come open about an inch......he said "take a pain pill that is normal with an infection it will be all right just come to your appt with me in the morning" Well I did like he said .......THEN.. 2 hrs later my whole inscision had come open ALL THE WAY open!!! I was rushed to the hospital where I was admitted with staph infection.....The Dr's at the emergency room said 8-10 more hrs and I would have been septic and there would have been nothing they could do.....I WOULDN'T have made it to the appt the next day. I was in the hospital for three days and went through whirlpool therapy three times a day dressing changing and was on IV 's the whole time. They couldn't' close the c-section because of the infection it had to close itself on its own. It came open in August and didn't close till February. My baby was still in the hospital but this time we were in hospitals that were right next to each other.....I would walk over everyday to be with her.......hoping and praying that she would be all right......Well it was a long month but she was finally going to go home. She had been through 2 surgeries one called fundoplication which is a stomach wrap.......she didnt have the gag reflex so if anything were to come up she would aspirate it into her lung and drowned. She had no relflexes at all except for blinking and breathing. She had another sugery to put in place a feeding tube so she could be fed that way. She has NEVER had a bottle or been able to eat anything by mouth always through the tube. She was given a life expectancy of 3-4 yrs.....

I'm happy to say she had her 6th birthday this past July.......It was really really hard in the beginning she was always sick in and out the hospital she also has a seizure disorder the have been pretty much under control lately with medication. She has Quardrapelegic Cerbral Palsy and severe seizure disorder. But she is doing well now better than I could have imagined after seeing her when she was born. She is totally non functional, dependant on me for everything that most people take for granted.

I thought there could be nothing worse.....BUT there was.....

I WAS VERY WRONG! Well almost 4 yrs later I was finally returning to where i could move without so much pain in my abdomen... I found out that I was going to have another baby I was very excited ....horrified ....I didnt think that I could have another child after all the insult and injury that had occured before. But I was gonna have a baby..:-) I went to all my appt. and check ups eveything was going really well then it was time to have the baby. They said I would have to have a c-sec because of the trauma before with the staph infection needless to say i was SO scared I didnt want to have another major surgery but none the less it had to be done. * I want to make a little note here that my first pregnancy and labor was typical so I knew that it is possible to have a child without complications* Because if i didn't then there was a chance of my urterus bursting. Well the day finally came...I went to the hospital and was prepped for the cesarian. My WONDERFUL sister Tiffany went with me to hold my hand. I was so very scared didn't know what was gonna happen. The c-section went well I had a healthy baby girl she weighed 7 lbs much smaller than my other 2 who weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and 8 lbs 5 oz . I was in the hopital for 2-3 days and went home. I was put on antibiotics while I was in the hospital due to the infection I had be 4 after having my second baby.

Then.....I am home everything is going well.....I feel fine a little uncomfortable but I just had a major surgery so that was to be expected. I noticed in keeping my c-sec dry (as your are told to by your doctors) that I had what looked like a HUGE bruise the size of a grapefruit at least where my insicion site was. I just thought it was from them tugging and pulling. A few days later I would come to find out that it wasn't a bruise but but indeed I had contracted NF.

NF= Necrotizing Faciitis.......aka....."Flesh Eating Bacteria"

I had my last babygirl on December 27.1999. I came home on Dec. 30 and noticed on the 31st that I had a skin tear (or what i thought was just a skin tear ) above my c-section insicion. I was thinking that it had became irritated by the pad I was wearing and it had been rubbing on my stomach...so i covered it with some gauze to keep it from gettin irritated. Other than that I felt pretty good. As with the other stories I have read I didnt feel like I had an infection..so that never entered my mind and definately not one as tragic as "flesh eating bacteria". Well as the day went on I said something to my sister about it and she didnt really think anything of it either. I mean I had already been through so much what could possibly be any worse.

"Flesh Eating Bacteria" was worse!!!

That night and on into the next day I noticed by changing the gauze I had covered the skin tare with that it was getting bigger and had a little drainage I knew to smell it to make sure there wasn't that "smell" you get with staff infection and there wasn't so I dismissed it again....Later on I went to the bathroom and had noticed that the area was about the size of a half dollar. Well needless to say it was New Years Eve "the millenium" and I didnt want to go to the hospital didnt noone know what was gonna happen to the world at the stroke of midnight so I stayed at home that was my first night alone when I left the hospital. The next day my sister comes back and I show her the site on my abdomen and she is like well Chantae better safe than sorry. So we make our way to the hospital. I go to another hospital different from the one in our town because of what happened the last time I had a baby. We finally get there and I go use the bathroom and the area has almost trippled in size withing the last 30 minutes so now I am really starting to worry...BUT I still didnt feel really sick till a few hrs later. I tell the receptionist I NEED TO BE SEEN QUICLY SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG!! They were like ok Chantae have a seat we will be right with you.....Another 30 minutes passes I start making it known that this is nothing to wait around on I NEED BACK THERE RIGHT NOW!!! Still another 30 minutes finally I get back to be seen and by this time the pain meds I had taken for my c-section were wearing off and I ws starting to feel a little sick. They have me take of my clothes and get in a gown and my sister asks me to look at it again. I lift up my gown and am HORRIFIED by what we see.

Whatever it was we didnt know at the time was moving so fast we were watching blisters come up and pop come up and pop within seconds of each other. Finally they realize something is terribly wrong but they are not sure yet. I was admitted to the hospital on January 1, 2000. WOW what a great way to start a new year was what I was thinking to myself. Finally checked in and they start running tests still baffled as to what was goin on they thought I had been bitten by a black widow spider and the skin was dying from that. Well lets move on a few days down the road...They finally got the tests back I had a total of 8 different infections the most serious was NF better known as "Flesh Eating Bacteria".....I also had Staph.....Enterocacuus jus to name a few that I can remember. I was on the vurge of dying the infection was moving SO FAST that it was litterally eating me alive.

I live in a very small town and this had never been treated here before that anyone was aware of, I believe it took several days for them to find out what they should do in the meantime I am really depressed I had just had a baby and had been breast feeding. ALL I could think of was what if I had passed this on to my baby or my middle child who had a feeding tube and open wound basically if what would have happened I wouldnt be able to live with myself......Well they were all ok Thank you GOD!! My sister Tiffany was pregnant due in end of march beginning of April and
she was now taking care of my three kids and she also had a toddler trying to explain why mommy was in the hospital and what was wrong trying not to let the children see how worried she was.

Now to the Hospital stay....

The first two weeks they came in three times a day and would have to remove the flesh and tissue that the infection had taken from me and cut back to the new tissue in hopes of keeping it under control. They would take pictures every day to show the damamge it had done. And if at all any progress... There were all kinds of doctors and medical students always coming in and in awe because they were actually gettin to see something so rare....Well finally my first suregery came it was on he 12th day I was there. They took me in and I was in for 4 hrs they removed 3 lbs of infected tissue and closed me up. Well my fever went down for that night then in the early a.m. it spiked back up so another surgery the next day to reopen it. This time they had to leave it open. and I had to have dressing changes ... I couldnt take a bath or shower ....couldn't be with my kids.....and was very very very ill. I had a total of 18 sugeries and was in the hospital for two months....came home and home health came for 4-6 months after that. In one of the pictures they had taken the infection had made its way so far back u could see my abdomenial wall. My scar is HORRID....I too had to have "wicks" put in to help with the drainage and that left little scars all over my stomach....along with the scare where they closed the place where NF had almost claimed my life.

I am doing better now although it still hurts where I had the surgeries they said that will be like that for a LONG time. Recently I have been having trouble coping with what happened.....finally since things have settled down I have had time to think about what actually happened and it is scaring me. I'm having nightmares and can't sleep.....I am glad that I have this oppurtunity to share my story!! Thank you very much!!