Saturday

Maria was in pain. That was all she knew for sure — pain, and that this was not what happened when Vincent was born. She began to get concerned — she was hooked up to two IVs, she wasn’t allowed to eat, she still wasn’t quite sure what was going on. Her concern escalated to fear, but she was stable and stayed so overnight.

The next morning, Maria learned she was hemorrhaging because of a placenta accreta. She was losing too much blood and clotting too much. Maria began to lose control.

“I was crying, and I just remember thinking I was going to die,” Maria explained. “I was screaming, not understanding how everything went so well and then felt like it was falling to pieces 100 miles an hour. My care team was just so calm in explaining it to me, bringing it to my level so I understood.”

A placenta accreta occurs when all or part of the placenta becomes inseparable from a woman’s uterine wall, creating massive blood loss after delivery. The condition is very rare — 1 in 2,500 pregnancies — but can be life-threatening if the hemorrhaging is severe.

Over the course of her surgery, Maria would require six bags of blood transfusion. In most cases, an unexpected placenta accreta will require a hysterectomy; thanks to the work of her team, Maria wasn’t one of them.

“I was in such shock and I just remember waking up and thinking, oh my gosh, I’m alive,” Maria said. “I seriously thought something was going to happen to me. I was thinking about the baby I just had, and my other one at home, too. I just kept thinking: They’re not going to have a mother. It was so scary.”

Maria and her growing family moved to Chicago when she was eight months pregnant. Maria was nervous about changing her maternity care so late in her pregnancy. With the help of online communities of local moms, she chose Lake Forest Hospital.

But after everything, I thought, this is where I was supposed to be. They saved me.”

“I did think in my head, if I was somewhere else, would this have happened?” Maria remembered. “But after everything, I thought, this is where I was supposed to be. They saved me.”

More than the life-saving expertise, it was the care and the support that impacted Maria. It was the guidance her whole team provided when she struggled to make sense of anything.

After her procedure, Maria couldn’t understand why she wasn’t allowed to see her new daughter. But her nurses knew what the mother needed. So one went to the nursery, setting it up so Maria could FaceTime with Nadia.

“That was special, because she didn’t have to do that. I know she didn’t have to do that, but she did,” Maria said. “I never would have even thought to ask, my mind frame was not there.”

When you think your life is on the line, it amplifies everything: every procedure and every act of compassion forges a connection that lasts long after you leave the hospital.

Four months later, Maria’s life is full of a new kind of chaos: that of two children under three years old. As a healthy, happy family, they go on walks, run around the park. Vincent has a lot of energy; Nadia is just happy to tag along.