Mom in Septic Shock After Birth of Baby, Moment She Meets Son 7 Days Later Goes Viral
Over the course of our marriage, my incredible wife has given me three absolutely beautiful children, and let me tell you something: No matter how many times you’ve been in a delivery room, the process of birth never seems any less terrifying.
The lights come on, the doctors and nurses become immediately intense, and you find yourself fervently praying that the whole thing would simply end safely — for child and mother. After all, some have estimated that the chances of dying in childbirth used to be as high as four percent.
Medicine has certainly improved, but having a baby is still risky. Just think about what happened to Emilie Gentry of Lynnwood, Washington.
In 2016, Gentry was pregnant with her first child. But the delivery didn’t go smoothly at all.
Her blood pressure plummeted, and her temperature spiked. What’s more, physicians couldn’t find her baby’s heartbeat.
So Gentry immediately went in for an emergency c-section, yet doctor’s fears didn’t abate once the infant had been born. Her child, a boy who she would later name Edward Jack (or E.J.), didn’t cry at all once out of the womb.
Doctors had to work on him for six minutes to establish a heartbeat. Meanwhile, Gentry was fighting for her life.
She would eventually learn that she had contracted chorioamnionitis, a ferociously nasty bacterial infection. It attacks the uterus and amniotic fluid, and it can lead to a whole host of horrible health outcomes.
The infection can most certainly harm infants, and many babies whose mothers contract it end up stillborn or suffer from chronic lung disease or cerebral palsy. Gentry herself was afflicted with one of the most common side effects of the illness: sepsis.
Even as she labored to bring a new life into the world, her own body was shutting down. Pus had begun to fill her womb, and multiple internal organs were starting to fail.
Medical professionals quickly rushed Gentry to the intensive care unit where they placed her on dialysis and started blood transfusions. Those steps saved her life, but they also meant she hadn’t gotten a single glimpse of little Edward Jack.
“The first time I saw my baby was on Facetime,” she told South West News Service. “It was such an emotional thing.
“I remember seeing his cute little face, and I just knew I had to talk to him. As soon as he heard my voice, I could tell he recognized it.”
All in all, though, Gentry didn’t get to meet her baby for seven days. But on that seventh day, her fiance Billy Given walked into her hospital room cradling the tiny bundle.
The picture of the new mother welcoming her child has since gone viral. It shows Gentry’s face contorted in simultaneous joy and sorrow, Edward Jack’s tiny frame clutched in her embrace.
Gentry is happy to both have her baby and be alive. “My doctor said my case was the closest thing to a maternal death she’s experienced in 20 years,” she recalled.
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