I was unconscious for three weeks during my pregnancy

by Kerry L. Fink

When I was about six and a half months pregnant, I was diagnosed with West Nile meningitis and encephalitis. I was unconscious for 3 weeks. The doctors were extremely worried about myself and the baby. My heart stopped twice on the way to the hospital which was over an hour away from my doctors' office. Luckily they were able to revive me, but I had to stay in the hospital up until about 3 weeks before I gave birth to my beautiful daughter.

I went into the hospital the day she was born with some extreme contractions. The doctor wanted to send me home, but my husband and I kept insisting that something was wrong with the baby, because these were very uncomfortable labor pains. Turns out, we were both right because our daughter's heart rate had dropped drastically. They had to do an emergency c-section and she was born not breathing. It took the doctors about 5 minutes to get her to breath.

I guess she was a very lucky little girl because when I got West Nile virus, all of the antibodies that you body builds up to fight it, went through the umbilical chord to keep her alive.

When I first got West Nile virus, I weight about 170 and when I left the hospital after having my daughter I was down to 98 pounds. My daughter is a very healthy little girl and they say that she is immune to West Nile now.