Mom Forgets Giving Birth to Triplets After Being Declared 'Clinically Dead' for 45 Minutes Following Cesarean
“I was absolutely terrified … How could I not remember?” Marisa Christie recalled of welcoming her three baby girls in August
Marisa Christie suffered a rare post-birth complication and was unconscious for a week after welcoming her triplets via a planned cesarean section in August
The 30-year-old from Texas told TODAY.com she was "terrified" after not being able to remember giving birth to her baby girls
Christie experienced an amniotic fluid embolism and was "clinically dead" for 45 minutes, her anesthesiologist Dr. Ricardo Mora told the outlet
A mom from Texas has shared how she forgot that she gave birth to her triplets after she was declared “clinically dead” for 45 minutes following her cesarean section.
After welcoming her triplets back in August at Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center North in Houston, Marisa Christie suffered a rare post-birth complication, according to TODAY.com.
“The doctors had pulled all three [babies] out. Actually, they were resting them on my stomach to do a delayed cord clamping,” Christie told the outlet. “My arms flew up, and that was when my heart stopped.”
The 30-year-old had experienced an amniotic fluid embolism, which according to the Mayo Clinic, is “a rare condition that happens when the fluid that surrounds the baby during pregnancy, called amniotic fluid, or fetal material such as fetal cells enters a pregnant person's bloodstream.”
Christie spent a week unconscious following her planned C-section, and when she woke, she learned about the birth of her little girls.
“My husband was like, ‘Hey, so we had the babies. They’re healthy and great,’ ” Christie, who is also mom to a 4-year-old son, told TODAY.com. “I was absolutely terrified … How could I not remember having my babies?”
Meeting her little ones — Charlotte, Kendall and Collins — for the first time when they were already over a week old was also “very surreal” for the mom of four.
“I remember thinking, ‘I don’t know these babies. This is very strange. They feel like they’re not real. They feel like they’re not mine,’ ” she said. “It took a little bit to get that connection with them.”
The triplets were delivered by Christie’s maternal-fetal medicine physician, Dr. Amber Samuel, but it was Christie’s anesthesiologist, Dr. Ricardo Mora, who noticed that she was seizing because he had seen another mom experience an amniotic fluid embolism while giving birth 15 years earlier.
“She [was] essentially gray. I knew something terrible just occurred,” Mora told the outlet, adding of the complication, “It’s pretty catastrophic. When it occurs, it’s about 80%, 85% fatal.”
“I asked Dr. Samuel what she had done. She related to me that she had just started pulling the placenta out and that’s usually the time when this occurs — the separation of the placenta and uterus,” he continued.
“She wasn’t breathing,” Mora added. “We started CPR because she had no pulse.”
Christie was also placed on ECMO, a machine that works for the heart and lungs to help the body recover, by Dr. Stephen Maniscalco, a cardiothoracic and vascular surgeon, per the outlet.
“She essentially lost what we consider her whole blood volume,” Mora said. “We replaced her blood volume. So, for 45 minutes, she was clinically dead.”
“You can do the best CPR in the world, but if you don’t get enough blood to the brain, essentially they are alive but with brain damage,” he added. “I needed her to live to raise her kids. So, it was a personal thing for me.”
Doctors tried to prevent Christie from having a hysterectomy, but after she experienced uncontrolled hemorrhaging they ultimately had to remove her uterus and she was left with an open wound so she wouldn't have to undergo further surgeries, per the outlet.
Nine weeks later her wound finally healed and a week after returning home the first of her babies also joined her, with Kendall and Collins following shortly after.
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Though thankful to have come through the ordeal, the experience was a life-changing one for Christie.
“I feel very disconnected to whoever [I] was before,” Christie told the outlet. “I’ve gotten stronger, but I’ve also changed so much because going through a traumatic experience like that changes the way you view things.”
“It’s rare, but it does happen,” she said. “There were so many miracles that led up to me living instead of dying and we’re grateful."
A GoFundMe campaign set up by Christie's brother Bryce Hansen to support her and her husband Dylan has so far raised over $21,000.
Christie's ordeal came months after a new mom in Ohio also experienced an amniotic fluid embolism after welcoming a healthy baby boy in February.
Ashley Zinn began experiencing “shortness of breath and chest pains” 45 minutes after giving birth and was placed in a medically induced coma, according to a GoFundMe campaign set up for her family.
“I remember telling the staff, 'I'm dying,' ” Zinn told NBC affiliate WLWT. “The last thing I remember after that was being hauled away to CT.”
Jenn Weinstein, Rabbi of Congregation Simchat HaLev in Woodbury, New York, also told PEOPLE earlier this year how her wife Andrea Termotto died in May after welcoming identical twin daughters.
The 35-year-old suffered an amniotic fluid embolism and spent 10 hours fighting for her life, but doctors couldn't save her.
"Her story is that she gave her life to give life. And it sucks, but even that is who she is, and who she was," Weinstein told PEOPLE.
