I had an appointment three days after I left the hospital with my ob/gyn to get the stitches taken out, at that time he noticed that I had a little infection around the incision site and said that I had a bad reaction from the tape that was put on after the c-section. He sent me home with antibiotics.

Two days after I saw my ob/gyn, I was making my husband's lunch that morning and bent down to get something out of the refrigerator and noticed that there was blood and puss leaking out of my incision site all over the place. My husband looked at it and said it was black and blue and looked nasty. He wanted to take me to the hospital, but I told him that my ob/gyn said that after he took my stitches out, he said that if it leaked a little bit, not to worry, if I noticed leakage a lot, to call him. So I figured that I would just send my husband off to work and told him I would contact my ob/gyn. I left a message for his answering service beings it was only 6 am and his office wasn't open. I didn't get a response until like after noon time and the receptionist told me to come in to their office as soon as I could. I telephoned my husband and waited for him to get home and take me to the doctor's office. I went into the office and my ob/gyn took one look at my incision and immediately asked me if my husband was with me. I said he was in the waiting room. He went into the waiting room and told my husband to take me to the OR/Triage immediately and that he would contact a surgeon to open me up and see what was going on.

I went to the hospital, waited forever sitting in a wheelchair, thinking I was just going to be opened up and go right home after that. Well, I don't remember much about what happened after that. All I know is that after they opened me up, they found NF. They did surgery for about 6 or 7 hours, from what my husband can remember and kept me open for two more surgeries until they finally got all of the infection out of me. It only took three surgeries and from what I was told by my surgeon was lucky to have had to have only three surgeries to have survived this. The surgeon came out after my first surgery (from what my husband and family tells me) and told them that if I had waited 6 more hours to come in to the hospital, I wouldn't be here to talk about it. Wow, how scary was that. I didn't even feel like I was dying. But anyway, the bad part about all this is that I had only been with my newborn son for like 6 or 7 days and was breastfeeding and had to be separated from him for two weeks. I can't breastfeed him anymore because I was on so much medication, they didn't recommend me doing it anymore. I was in so much pain, I wanted to die. They brought a therapist in to talk to me and put me on Celexa.

I'm still recovering. It's been four months since I've been out of the hospital. My incision goes from my left side to right side of my hips and is still tender. Scar tissue is really bothering me. I had to have my uterus removed and a lot of damaged tissue and a big part of my stomach wall removed of which I've accumulated a hernia from having no support in my stomach. The surgeon expected it.

Now I have to go through another surgery to get rid of the hernia. I am terrified and don't want anyone touching down there again. I'm scared to be opened up again in the hopes that I don't get this infection again. My surgeon said that I won't ever get it again. He saved my life and I am so grateful to him for everything he's done. I trust him and will let him do the hernia surgery. I guess I don't want to be separated from my son again. I've finally re-bonded with him. I have an 11 year-old daughter who I also missed, but I got to see her every day. I don't think she'll ever understand why I am so close to my son and why I don't like being away from him. It was hard for her to see me with him once I finally got home. All I wanted to do was hold him because I didn't see him for two weeks. I thought he would forget who I was, but he didn't. I love both of my kids, but something about going through all this makes me have a stronger bond with my son. I look at life a little different now.

I am very thankful to everyone who prayed for me and especially to my husband who had to take off work for three weeks and take care of our newborn son while I was in the hospital. He came every day and dragged our baby and daughter to the hospital every day to see me. Someone had to stay with my son because I wasn't allowed to bring him in the room because of the seriousness of the NF.

Well, I just wanted to briefly tell my story of what I can remember right now. I'm just trying to recover from all this and feel better. I think it will be over once I'm over the hernia surgery, which will be soon. I would love to talk to anyone who has gone through this. Feel free to email me anytime. Take care to all of the survivors out there. Hope to hear from you.