MaElena
MaElena didn’t think she could have children. When she got pregnant and COVID, doctors did an emergency c-section and then put her on a ventilator. 67 days later she held her baby for the first time.
DETROIT, MICHIGAN: They told me I had polycystic ovarian syndrome so it was going to be hard to conceive or not possible at all. At that point, I figured it was never going to happen. Kids weren’t going to be possible. So, I gave up on it and we stopped trying.
Kids weren’t going to be possible.
Last year, I went to the doctor after feeling nauseous thinking it was a migraine. He told me I was pregnant. I was completely taken aback. At first, I panicked. I'm an only child and I got into this selfish mode where it was all about me. Now I was going to be responsible for another person. That made me nervous. But, I was ready.
At first, I panicked...Now I was going to be responsible for another person.
I was keeping up with COVID on the news, but we've been through this stuff before with SARS and Ebola. They said those were going to be serious for us and they never were a huge issue. I was thinking it was along the lines of that.
I went to the hospital on March 16th for preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication characterized by high blood pressure. I also had bronchitis, so I had a cough and a rattle in my lungs. It was the very beginning of the pandemic so they were not testing for COVID at the time.
they were not testing for COVID at the time.
After a couple of days, they told me, “We think you have pneumonia. We hear something in your lungs. We're going to x-ray you.” The next day they said, “We don't think it's pneumonia. We're gonna test you for COVID.” That's when they told me, “You have the COVID.”
I was about 31 weeks. They were going to induce me at 34 weeks. But, they woke me up on March 22nd at about 9:30 PM. I had sweated through my clothes, the sheets, everything. You could see my body imprint on the mattress. That's how hard I had sweated through everything. At 3 AM, they told me, “We're getting ready to prep you for an emergency c-section.” I called my mom, but being 3 AM she didn’t answer. So I called my boyfriend and asked, “Look, they're about to take the baby. Can you go knock on my door and wake my mom up?” That's the last thing I remember.
they told me, “We're getting ready to prep you for an emergency c-section.”
By the time they got to the hospital, which is not even a 30-minute drive, they had already delivered the baby and were prepping me to go on the vent because everything went downhill quickly. My lungs started to fail. My kidneys were failing. My heart was failing. I went into cardiac arrest twice. And I wasn't breathing on my own.
My lungs started to fail. My kidneys were failing. My heart was failing.
They had delivered so fast that my OB barely saw my daughter. The hospital was good enough to admit they were not equipped to take care of somebody that young with COVID. So, they sent her to the children’s hospital at Univerity of Michigan Ann Harbor.
Now the doctor who treated me, Dr. Steven Miles, did a lot because he did not want this new baby girl to grow up without a mother. So, he tried everything he could. Everybody said they were using me as a guinea pig. I don't think of it that way because it was so new. They had no choice. Nobody knew how to treat it. At this point, everybody was an experiment. He went above and beyond to make sure that I stayed here for my daughter's sake.
He did not want this new baby girl to grow up without a mother. So, he tried everything he could.
They put me on 24-hour plasmapheresis for two weeks. After that, it was a waiting game.
They called my mom a couple of times and told her they didn't think that I was gonna make it through the night and she might want to start getting arrangements together.
they didn't think that I was gonna make it through the night
The hospitals were all on lockdown, even for the baby, no visitors. So my mom had her only child in the hospital, her only grandchild in the hospital, and she couldn’t see either one. She was going crazy. My boyfriend thought he was about to lose his best friend and possibly his child. At this point, all everybody could do was hold onto their faith and pray.
all everybody could do was hold onto their faith and pray.
We believe in the power of prayer. My mom said everybody was praying -- family and friends all over. Some nurses at the hospital even prayed for me.
After two weeks, they took my daughter off her breathing tubes. She was eating on her own and breathing on her own. She was doing good. They even let my mom go up and see her a little bit.
I woke up on April 27th after being in a coma for 33 days. I thought it was the next day and was about to hop up to go. But, I couldn't move. My body felt so heavy. It was like they entombed me in a cement block. I couldn’t move my legs and I had no feeling below the waist. It’s called Guillain-Barre syndrome. They weren't sure if it was due to the flu shot, the pregnancy, or COVID but it's a nerve disorder that causes paralysis in the body.
I woke up on April 27th after being in a coma for 33 days.
The first thing I remember was somebody telling me, "Welcome back! Congratulations on your baby girl." I'm looking at her like she's crazy.
I said, “What are you talking about?”
She replied, “Your baby! You had a baby!!”
I'm like, “I had a baby?”
She's like, “You had a baby.”
I did not remember that I had a baby. I did not remember being pregnant. I’d never heard of them separating the mother and child before. So I thought, if I had a baby, where is she?
I did not remember that I had had a baby. I did not remember being pregnant or anything.
The same day I woke up, my boyfriend took our daughter home.
For the most part, I made a good recovery. They moved me out of the ICU and they put me in quarantine. I had to do three or four dialysis treatments because I still had issues with my kidneys. I had a blood clot from being in the bed for so long. They removed that. The only thing they said was that I was going to have lung damage from being on the vent for so long. At that point, they hadn't had anybody on the vent that long and survived.
they hadn't had anybody on the vent that long and survived.
The memories started coming back a week later. I was able to process a lot of stuff. When they told me that the baby had COVID, that kind of set me back a little bit. I questioned, was it my fault for not taking the precautions that I needed to take at first? Or, was it because it was inevitably going to happen because I was pregnant at the time?
Originally, they wouldn't let the doctors or the nurses travel between floors. But, they were sneaking down to say hi. They were like “We can't believe it. We took care of you. We hope everything's going well for you. Hopefully, you don't have to be here too much longer.” Everybody was shocked.
they were sneaking down to say hi.
The doctor’s first words to me were, “Do you realize how blessed you are? You were almost at the end. But we did everything we could to make sure you didn't cross the threshold.”
“Do you realize how blessed you are? You were almost at the end.”
And that's what everybody kept saying. That's why they kept sneaking down. They were like, “For you to have nothing major going on after being on a vent for so long. That's amazing. That was nothing but God.” That's all you can say, but God.
“That was nothing but God.”
From there we tried physical therapy. It wasn't working at first. I couldn't do anything. I couldn’t move. I didn't have enough strength to lift my phone to my face. When they gave me my phone a couple of days later, it hit the floor. It felt so heavy in my hands. I couldn't hold a cup of juice. They gave me food on a plate, but I couldn't hold anything.
I didn't have enough strength to lift my phone to my face.
Two weeks after that, they tried again with physical therapy. Because the hospital was short-staffed, I started doing stuff on my own -- rocking back and forth until I could roll over. I still wasn't able to walk. Because they did a c-section, my core was super weak. Because your core helps move most of your lower body, I didn't have that strength either. Once I was able to start sitting up on my own, I would lift the bed up and down to get some movement.
Because I wasn't able to move, I started moving the bed up and down and they said that'll help with muscle memory to try to get the body to do what it's supposed to do and so on. Once I would get the bed sitting up, I would hold onto the rails and then lift myself the rest of the way up. That helped me build some core strength. They started helping me stand with this big machine thing. I was able to stay there, but only with the machines. After that, I'd be on the floor. The walking process was long. But, I had to be able to take care of myself before I went home.
I had fought so hard because I wanted to walk. I wanted to do everything I did before, but I also wanted to be able to hold up my baby. I hadn't met her and she was already more than two months old. I still felt it was a dream.
I hadn't met her and she was already more than two months old.
The day to go home was amazing. They did this little parade for me, where everybody gets together and cheered and clapped and things like that. And I was able to show everybody the progress I've made. So I was able to show people that I have been working hard and I could walk, not a lot, but I could walk.
67 days after giving birth, I held my daughter for the first time. I thought, “Wow, I created this little person.” I was so excited. Going home to meet her was worth the wait.
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