Well, Joelle had a fever and was really stuffy, so we went to the doctor on a Wednesday. We didn’t see her regular pediatrician and was told it’s just a head cold. She had RSV at 1 month old, so they reassured me it was not RSV or in her lungs. I was planning to go out of town for the weekend since it was just a cold and I knew my mom could watch her.
Well, come Thursday, I was supposed to go to my graduate class and Joelle didn’t look right. She had glazed over eyes and I just had a gut feeling something was wrong. At about 10 AM, she stopped wanting to eat, she was crying uncontrollably, she still had a fever with cold hands and feet and then she started to make a grunt sound. I called the doctor back and said okay something is not right and we need to come in today. They worked us in and I thank God for that. We put her in the car seat and I remember saying to my mom- “okay she finally stopped crying and is going to sleep.” Well she wasn’t going to sleep, she was in respiratory failure, but I had no idea. We got in the car and headed to the doctor. If we didn’t go to the doctor at that exact time, my daughter would not be here today.
We get in the back and they take her temp and it’s 104.something (way too high for a 2 month old) and they had a scared look on their face. She said get her down to a dry diaper and let’s weigh her. The next moment is the life changing moment. I put her on the scale and the nurse said omg she is limp, she is not moving and grabs my daughter and starts CPR immediately. I remember running to my mom and we were praying out to God asking why and save her and crying uncontrollably. When I hear or see on TV, people’s world stops – that is truly what happened and it felt like a lifetime of waiting.
Everyone comes in the room and they continue to do CPR and put the oxygen on her. They couldn’t find a heartbeat at one point then it was very faint. The ambulance got there and I went with them. All of this becomes a blur because I was in shock that this was happening to me. I do remember stopping and another medic came on because she was so small that someone had to do constant CPR while one medic held the oxygen mask. I remember just sitting there feeling so helpless and praying. We get to the children’s hospital and everyone comes rushing to us and immediately hooks her up to all these machines. Her heart rate was going from 30-40s to 230-240s. They were asking me a million family history questions and I was so confused. My child just had a common cold the day before and now she is on the verge of dying.
The next hours are a blur as well because I feel like I was numb at this point and still not believing this is happening. I do remember one of the medics looking at me and saying, “She is in the best place now, she is going to be okay. I’ve been doing this for 25 years and I’ve never been so scared.” Next, a very nice and compassionate med student sat with me and my mom outside of this room and he told us that they were going to put a tube down her throat and she will be in a medically induced coma and on life support because she cannot breathe on her own right now and her heart rate is not stable.
They take us up to the 6th floor which is the PICU and tell us it will be awhile before we can see Joelle because they have a lot to do to get her stable. I remember posting on Facebook asking for prayers and not wanting to tell my friends how serious it was because I didn’t want to accept the fact it might not end well. It was at least 2-3 hours before we actually got to see her. I will never forget when I first saw her, she was so swollen and was all wrapped up and so many tubes and machines. The first night we almost lost her again because her heart rate dropped but Maggie, her nurse was on it and so calm when all those machines were going crazy. I still hear the beeping sometimes from the heart rate and O2 monitor. We made it through the first night- YAY!
Every morning the doctor and the full crew do their reports right outside the patient’s room and you are allowed to listen and ask questions. While standing outside the room, I noticed a plaque and it said, “This room was donated and funded by USC Dance Marathon 2013”. That was my first year participating in Dance Marathon and I was on the orange team and we were on the orange floor. That’s what I call a God moment. Anyways, I remember the doctor explaining right now they are waiting on urine test, blood test, cultures being grown and watched, so honestly it’s a waiting game and day by day basis and he looked and said this is very seriously.
Well, a day or two go by and they get the test back and she had group B strep sepsis (blood infection) and pneumonia (lung infection), but they needed to get spinal fluid to determine if it was meningitis. Luckily, it was not because once again, we would be in a very different outcome if so with long lasting side effects. I remember saying, “Wait, I was GBS negative during pregnancy and she was C-section and I had stopped breastfeeding at 1 month about, so I’m confused how she got this.” He said late onset GBS is very rare and they will never be able to tell me how she got it, so don’t beat myself up about it. I still want to know how to this day.
For the first couple of days, it felt like we had no improvements and she just got more swollen. We came in on February 20th and I had not been able to hold her since then. Well, on February 27th at morning rounds, the doctor had seen big improvements in her oxygen over the past couple of days and wanted to take her off life support. I asked, well, what if she doesn’t breathe on her own when we take her off, can we save her and he said yes so I said let’s do it! Hearing her breathe and take that first breathe again was like having her be born again. It was amazing and she did it! February 27th was the first day that I got to hold my baby in a week and that was when I knew my baby was going to make it and be okay.
I didn’t know at this point if we would see lasting effects or developmental delays, but I honestly didn’t care because she was alive and breathing on her own. We spent one week in the PICU and then moved down to the 3rd floor for one week, so she could learn to bottle feed again and wean off morphine and finish the antibiotics and other medicines. I stayed every single night at the hospital for two weeks. March 1st was the first day that I felt like she was starting to be herself and smiling. She got her feeding tube out on March 3rd and was taking her bottles again. Over the next few days, it was just learning how to get back to normal and making sure she was completely healed from the infections and we were sent home on March 6th.
I know my story is long and probably more details then you need, but I would never want another family to go through what we did. It’s just so hard because babies change states so fast. I thought GBS could only affect my unborn baby and I had no idea about late onset GBS. I feel like pediatricians should talk about it at 1 and 2 month appointments or include it in the paperwork they give you. I can’t say enough thanks to God, the doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, all other staff at Children’s Hospital for saving my baby. My daughter is now 1 years old and we have seen a complete healing with no lasting effects.
-Brittney
Brittney helps spread GBS awareness by sharing posts about the warning signs and telling their story!
Well, come Thursday, I was supposed to go to my graduate class and Joelle didn’t look right. She had glazed over eyes and I just had a gut feeling something was wrong. At about 10 AM, she stopped wanting to eat, she was crying uncontrollably, she still had a fever with cold hands and feet and then she started to make a grunt sound. I called the doctor back and said okay something is not right and we need to come in today. They worked us in and I thank God for that. We put her in the car seat and I remember saying to my mom- “okay she finally stopped crying and is going to sleep.” Well she wasn’t going to sleep, she was in respiratory failure, but I had no idea. We got in the car and headed to the doctor. If we didn’t go to the doctor at that exact time, my daughter would not be here today.
We get in the back and they take her temp and it’s 104.something (way too high for a 2 month old) and they had a scared look on their face. She said get her down to a dry diaper and let’s weigh her. The next moment is the life changing moment. I put her on the scale and the nurse said omg she is limp, she is not moving and grabs my daughter and starts CPR immediately. I remember running to my mom and we were praying out to God asking why and save her and crying uncontrollably. When I hear or see on TV, people’s world stops – that is truly what happened and it felt like a lifetime of waiting.
Everyone comes in the room and they continue to do CPR and put the oxygen on her. They couldn’t find a heartbeat at one point then it was very faint. The ambulance got there and I went with them. All of this becomes a blur because I was in shock that this was happening to me. I do remember stopping and another medic came on because she was so small that someone had to do constant CPR while one medic held the oxygen mask. I remember just sitting there feeling so helpless and praying. We get to the children’s hospital and everyone comes rushing to us and immediately hooks her up to all these machines. Her heart rate was going from 30-40s to 230-240s. They were asking me a million family history questions and I was so confused. My child just had a common cold the day before and now she is on the verge of dying.
The next hours are a blur as well because I feel like I was numb at this point and still not believing this is happening. I do remember one of the medics looking at me and saying, “She is in the best place now, she is going to be okay. I’ve been doing this for 25 years and I’ve never been so scared.” Next, a very nice and compassionate med student sat with me and my mom outside of this room and he told us that they were going to put a tube down her throat and she will be in a medically induced coma and on life support because she cannot breathe on her own right now and her heart rate is not stable.
They take us up to the 6th floor which is the PICU and tell us it will be awhile before we can see Joelle because they have a lot to do to get her stable. I remember posting on Facebook asking for prayers and not wanting to tell my friends how serious it was because I didn’t want to accept the fact it might not end well. It was at least 2-3 hours before we actually got to see her. I will never forget when I first saw her, she was so swollen and was all wrapped up and so many tubes and machines. The first night we almost lost her again because her heart rate dropped but Maggie, her nurse was on it and so calm when all those machines were going crazy. I still hear the beeping sometimes from the heart rate and O2 monitor. We made it through the first night- YAY!
Every morning the doctor and the full crew do their reports right outside the patient’s room and you are allowed to listen and ask questions. While standing outside the room, I noticed a plaque and it said, “This room was donated and funded by USC Dance Marathon 2013”. That was my first year participating in Dance Marathon and I was on the orange team and we were on the orange floor. That’s what I call a God moment. Anyways, I remember the doctor explaining right now they are waiting on urine test, blood test, cultures being grown and watched, so honestly it’s a waiting game and day by day basis and he looked and said this is very seriously.
Well, a day or two go by and they get the test back and she had group B strep sepsis (blood infection) and pneumonia (lung infection), but they needed to get spinal fluid to determine if it was meningitis. Luckily, it was not because once again, we would be in a very different outcome if so with long lasting side effects. I remember saying, “Wait, I was GBS negative during pregnancy and she was C-section and I had stopped breastfeeding at 1 month about, so I’m confused how she got this.” He said late onset GBS is very rare and they will never be able to tell me how she got it, so don’t beat myself up about it. I still want to know how to this day.
For the first couple of days, it felt like we had no improvements and she just got more swollen. We came in on February 20th and I had not been able to hold her since then. Well, on February 27th at morning rounds, the doctor had seen big improvements in her oxygen over the past couple of days and wanted to take her off life support. I asked, well, what if she doesn’t breathe on her own when we take her off, can we save her and he said yes so I said let’s do it! Hearing her breathe and take that first breathe again was like having her be born again. It was amazing and she did it! February 27th was the first day that I got to hold my baby in a week and that was when I knew my baby was going to make it and be okay.
I didn’t know at this point if we would see lasting effects or developmental delays, but I honestly didn’t care because she was alive and breathing on her own. We spent one week in the PICU and then moved down to the 3rd floor for one week, so she could learn to bottle feed again and wean off morphine and finish the antibiotics and other medicines. I stayed every single night at the hospital for two weeks. March 1st was the first day that I felt like she was starting to be herself and smiling. She got her feeding tube out on March 3rd and was taking her bottles again. Over the next few days, it was just learning how to get back to normal and making sure she was completely healed from the infections and we were sent home on March 6th.
I know my story is long and probably more details then you need, but I would never want another family to go through what we did. It’s just so hard because babies change states so fast. I thought GBS could only affect my unborn baby and I had no idea about late onset GBS. I feel like pediatricians should talk about it at 1 and 2 month appointments or include it in the paperwork they give you. I can’t say enough thanks to God, the doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, all other staff at Children’s Hospital for saving my baby. My daughter is now 1 years old and we have seen a complete healing with no lasting effects.
-Brittney
Brittney helps spread GBS awareness by sharing posts about the warning signs and telling their story!
To learn more about Perinatal & GBS Misconceptions, click HERE.
To learn more about the Signs & Symptoms of Preterm Labor, click HERE.
To learn more about the Signs & Symptoms of GBS Infection, click HERE.
To learn more about Why Membranes Should NOT Be Stripped, click HERE.
To learn more about How to Help Protect Your Baby from Group B Strep (GBS), click HERE.
To learn more about the Signs & Symptoms of Preterm Labor, click HERE.
To learn more about the Signs & Symptoms of GBS Infection, click HERE.
To learn more about Why Membranes Should NOT Be Stripped, click HERE.
To learn more about How to Help Protect Your Baby from Group B Strep (GBS), click HERE.