A purpose to stay alive
From São Paulo, Brazil
On September 18, 2017, I was 35 years old and was born my second child, through a successful Caesarean section and in an environment of much love and happiness. A week after childbirth, I fainted at home and rushed to the hospital with a severe uterine hemorrhage. With low blood pressure (2), blood transfusions were performed in perforations through various parts of my body. A group of doctors struggled so that I wouldn’t really leave and my only wish was to be able to breastfeed my son. I remember lying in a bed without being able to see my feet, because my breasts filled with milk, occupied everything I could see. The only thing I felt at that moment was a divine force, a willingness to get up and go and breastfeed my son who had only six days to live. I talked to God and told him I needed to breastfeed my son. I asked God why the doctors were so nervous and because it was taking so long for me to get up. Next I saw my father (died 1982) and completely lost consciousness. Hours later I woke up with the doctors arguing if they would do a hysterectomy (withdrawal from the uterus) to break the hemorrhage. The anesthesiologist and the cardiologist said it was necessary, but my doctor and the hematologists said they could try some procedures first. The anesthesiologist injected drugs to stop the bleeding and control my blood pressure, but the amount of blood I lost was great and the new blood injected was not being enough to balance my heartbeat. I remember waking up and seeing my breasts full of milk with my mother holding my newborn baby so that he could breastfeed on me. My arms were tied, one received medication and the other received blood, which prevented me from holding my son. Strangely I was very happy, because I knew that I would soon be seated and breastfeeding my son.
After the fright I became a research guinea pig because there are several syndromes that explain what I had, but the tests I did denied the presence of each one of them. It was two years of searching for a medical and scientific response that would explain what had happened to me. I found out that I developed a very specific platelet hypoaggregation in pregnancy that prevented blood clotting.
Today I talk to God every day, I practice gratitude for being alive and have been able to accomplish my strong purpose of breastfeeding. I have learned that each experience brings meaningful learning and that thinking positively and trusting that we have a mission to fulfill gives us the strength to move forward.
