Courtney's Daughter's Story   — Courtney Haddock, AR, USA

I was 40 weeks pregnant and dilated to 3cm and wasn't going into labor on my own so they decided to induce me on Oct 13, 2010. I was so excited I would finally get to meet my daughter. They started the induction at 8am and I had a beautiful 8lb, 2oz little girl at 3:22pm. She was perfect! I began breastfeeding right away and she latched on without a problem. After an hour with her the nurses took her to the nursery for blood work and a bath. She was able to come right back to me. Later that night around 7pm she began grunting and having trouble breathing. I called the nurse and she came and got her and said she would bring her back after the doctor looked at her. Early the next morning I woke realizing they never brought my daughter back so I sent my husband to check on her. He came back to the room and informed me that they had her on oxygen and started i.v. antibiotics. I was terrified. Later the doctor came and said she had group B strep and they wanted to do a spinal tap to see if it had moved into her spinal fluid and brain. I signed the consent form and waited anxiously. My baby girl then had to get moved into the NICU so they could monitor her better and put in a central line so the antibiotics can get through her system better. The test came back positive. The infection had moved into her spinal fluid. The doctor said if she made it through the night she would have a good chance at beating it. She did! They informed us that we would have to stay in the NICU for 2 weeks so she could get treatment. After 2 days she began to improve and began breastfeeding again. She was doing amazingly well for 7 days and then her fever spiked to 103F. Once again I was terrified. They did another spinal tap and said that her white blood cell count was still really high and they wanted to do a brain test on her to see if she was having seizures. Later that day they nurses came in and put tiny needles into her head so they could monitor her brain activity for 24 hours. All tests came back normal and her fever finally broke! On October 28, 2010 I finally got to take my baby girl home! She is now a thriving, smart, very energetic 1 year old. She is not suffering from any long term effects and although she was admitted to the hospital again in January 2011 for a really high fever it was not due to the infection. She is perfect and I thank God everyday for letting me keep my little girl!