I’ve been contemplating writing this since I started my blog back in January. It’s such a personal story, not many of our closest friends even know all the gory details, so to put it out there for the world to read is a big deal. I decided to write this story for the blog because my daughter’s 5th birthday is coming up and I’ve never written her story before. As well, I wanted people to know that sometimes births don’t go the way you want them to. And if you are like me, you can plan all you want for a homebirth and still end up with an unplanned hospital cesarean birth. So the best thing to do? Be prepared for anything. Pack a bag at least! I was so sure I could avoid the hospital and a cesarean I didn’t pack a bag. I ended up bringing my baby home in the most god awful outfit in the world because my husband had to go home and find something for her by himself (hand-me-down yellow t-shirt with red and white striped leggings, and a pink toque). There were no “baby’s homecoming” pictures of her!
Warning: If you are the kind of person who is sensitive to TMI (too much information) then you might want to stop reading right now. Some of this is a bit yucky. And please be kind with your comments. If you have a criticism of any of the choices I made, please know that I’ve criticized myself for many of them already. Okay, here we go.
The contractions woke me up around 2:00 am. I sat in the dark watching them come and go, every 20 minutes or so, and I excitedly wondered if today was the day I would become a mother. Hubby was working the night shift an hour away. Even though my contractions were far apart I couldn’t help but picture the baby suddenly deciding to come and being alone to deliver her on the floor of my bathroom. I can be a worrier, so I called him and asked him to come home.
Hubby arrived to find me in the tub. I’ve always been a light sleeper, so I couldn’t just roll over and go back to bed. Unfortunately, I’d been suffering from insomnia for a few nights, so this was a really bad time to decide to have a bath. But in my defense I knew baths could slow things down and help relax a labouring mom, and that was my primary goal so I could possibly get a few zz’s before sunrise.
Hubby called the midwives so they knew what was happening. They told me I wasn’t in labour, go back to bed and they would call me in the morning.
Around 8:00, after only winks of sleep, the midwives called and told me they’d made an appointment for me to see the Obstetrician so we could try to diagnose this issue I was having. You see, approximately a week earlier I noticed a strange lesion on the upper part of my left thigh. It was slightly larger than a loonie (aka, silver dollar) and as the days passed little bitty baby lesions radiated out from it, like an ugly sun with sunrays. Other lesions ranging in size from the head of a pin to a nickel covered my upper thing and just under my bikini line. There were a few on the right thigh too, but not nearly as many. In all there must have been one hundred. It was the grossest thing I have ever seen. To this day I shudder, remembering it.
Anyway, when I first spotted it I went straight to the Walk-In Clinic to see a doctor. The on-call told me he had no idea what it was but that it didn’t look like anything that could affect my ability to have a natural delivery. Since it was week 39 and I could have the baby any day, he didn’t think it made any sense to swab or test it as the results from lab tests took two weeks to come in and by that time I already would have had the baby or it would have disappeared. No such luck doc. It just grew and grew.
The midwives saw it a few days later. They said they had no idea what it was either. They told me in their wise-women-knowing-stay-positive way that it would be gone by the time the baby decided to arrive. No such luck midwives. She’s a-comin’!
Thus the OB appointment. She squeezed me in between appointments on a busy day since it was obvious that we had a situation on our hands. I think she might have recoiled when she saw my legs. I’m pretty sure she said “Oh my God.”
“What is it?” we all wanted to know, expectantly waiting her diagnosis.
“I have absolutely no idea,” she replied. “In all my 20 years of being an OB/GYN I have never seen anything like this!”
She called in one of her colleagues across the hall to come and take a look. She was stumped too. The next appointment was canceled as she went to work trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I think she was pretty thrilled actually. I don’t blame her. I’ve always enjoyed the difficult puzzles who are clients in my mental health work too. (Luckily for me, my contractions were still very irregular: 20 minutes, 10 minutes, 35 minutes, 7 minutes. We had time.) She called up the Provincial Center for Disease Control (CDC) and spoke with someone about the presentation of the lesions.
“HSV?” they guessed (that’s herpes simplex virus for those of you who aren’t in the know).
“No, I don’t think so,” she said. Maybe it was yeast-filled warts, she thought. (God that was hard to type! Sorry if anyone just threw up a little. I know I did.)
Biopsy time! She froze a small area of my thigh and took out of nice chunk of flesh with what looked like a hole-puncher. She filled it in with some kind of silver solution (?). To this day I can still see it although she told me it was supposed to disappear. She also took pictures (Ugh!) and emailed them to the CDC. That might have been one of the most humiliating moments of my life, regardless of the fact she let my hubby take the pictures.
Before we left she said, “In my professional opinion this is not HSV. But because I can’t be sure I need to recommend a c-section. It’s up to you, and I will support whatever decision you make, but if I were you I would get the cesarean.” She handed me a prescription for sleeping pills and told me to go home and sleep and hope that my contractions would stop to buy us some time.
I probably cried on the way home. I really wanted to birth this baby at home. Moreover, I didn’t want to make the wrong decision based on guesses and recommendations! I wanted facts!
As soon as we walked in the door the receptionist from the OB’s office called and said that she had done some research after we left and found out that they do a rapid-screening HSV test in the city an hour away. Would we be interested in getting one? Are you kidding me? So on practically no sleep and no food to boot (I don’t know why I hadn’t eaten – I’m usually very good about that sort of thing. It was likely all the stress and anxiety) we got back into the car and drove north.
The contractions weren’t getting anymore regular but they were getting closer together: 12 minutes, 6 minutes, 3 minutes, 9 minutes. I had a really big one that had me doubled over the hood of the car when we got there. Luckily, they got us in immediately. The doctor who examined me wasn’t any wiser than the first ones. He just did the swab and sent it off. He did suggest he check and see if I was dialated though, which I also thought was a good idea.
“Aaaaahhhhfffffuuuuuhhhh!” I screeched, trying not to swear the word trying to escape my lips. “What the hell was that?” It had felt like he had examined me with a ragged tin can, the barrrel of a gun or something similarily invasive and cruel.
“That was two fingers,” he told me, with an obvious look of concern. I looked over at my hubby for confirmation, who nodded, eyes wide with fear. Then he said something along the lines of “If I didn’t think you had herpes before, I do think so now. That shouldn’t have hurt you at all. You must have lesions inside your vaginal walls. This baby should be delivered immediately by cesarean, before your bag of waters breaks. If it does break your baby could be exposed to infection. We can keep you here and do it right now if you want.”
Information overload! Then I know I cried! He gave me and the hubby some time together to decide what we would do. I still wanted confirmation. My bag of water hadn’t broken, my contractions were still irregular, and if I had to have a c-section I wanted to do it at our local hospital with my midwives by my side. We decided to take our chances, rather, I decided and hubby supported me. The doctor was kind about it, wished us luck and told us the results would be in within the hour.
The car ride home was the most awful hour of my life. I had one of my birthing CDs in the car that had been playing itself over and over all day long. Finally I yelled at my poor hubby to “turn that damn thing off!” “Drive faster!” was another demand I inflicted, one I never do. I tend to drive in the slow lane on any other given day. I writhed around in the backseat of my Toyota Echo, not even close to being big enough to fit a 6 ft tall labouring mama. Finally we got to town and stopped at the local arena. The midwives had called but hubby’s cel phone died trying to return the message, so we needed some place to make a call from a pay phone. It was a busy night at the arena. The Barenaked Ladies and Neil Young were playing a very special concert to raise awareness about air pollution being generated by our local mill. Tickets were astronomically expensive with people coming from all over the world to see Neil Young play in an auditorium that could only fit 200 people. Hubby had bought tickets months earlier and as the date approached I urged him to sell them.
“I don’t want to go into labour at a concert I told him.”
“But our baby could be born barenaked under a harvest moon!” he protested, laughing. Thankfully he sold them.
Now, as we pulled up to the curb in the no parking zone, I wondered if his joke might come true. It must have been intermission. People were milling about, smoking, talking, laughing. I’m sure I spoiled the mood a little as I tumbled out of the backseat to manage a particularly painful contraction now stretched out over the curb and car.
“Is she okay?” asked one. “Should we call an ambulance?” wondered another.
“She’s fine, she’s just in labour,” called my assumedly embarrassed husband. I’ve never minded making a scene in public if the occasion arises. He on the other hand would rather die, I’m sure.
Hubby raced back to the car. “She said she wants us to meet her at the clinic so she can check how far along you are. I told her we first have to get something to eat though.”
Food! I was famished at this point, but also equally anxious to find out the results. Soon we rounded into a Subway parking lot and hubby bounded out of the car to get sandwiches. I watched him through the window order our dinner and then answer his phone. (I thought his phone was broken? This part is blurry…) Then he ran back.
“We have to get to the clinic right away and you’re not allowed to eat anything,” he told me. Kindly, he didn’t open his sandwich and take a bite while telling me this. Mine lay forlornly on the seat between us.
I think I swore.
Our midwife was already there. She waited while I had a contraction then sat us down and delivered the news. HSV 1. Primary outbreak. Cesarean strongly recommended. My choice. Baby could die or be born with massive brain damage. Here’s some information. My choice? I scanned the document. Statistics. Only a 5% chance of a healthy baby. There was no choice to be made.
My dream for a homebirth was down the drain. Like a little girl I held my midwife’s hand as we entered the hospital while hubby stayed behind to fill out some papers. Did I want a wheelchair? someone asked. No, I wanted to walk. I might be scared and sick with disappointment and grief but I wasn’t letting anyone “medicalize” me anymore than needed. They wouldn’t even let me wear my birthing necklace, the only thing I’d grabbed as we first headed out the door at the beginning of the day.
My midwife took as much of a role in the process of possible. She explained the procedure, shaved me, helped me undress and stayed in the room the whole time while someone gave me the spinal and did all those other things they have to do that I’ve pretty much blocked out. She assured me that my one request to announce the baby’s sex would be granted. When I threw up as they sliced me open she held the bucket . When I started to lose it as they squeezed my baby out of my chest cavity like I was a toothpaste tube and she was the toothpaste, she led me through an unrelated visualization. She was my hero.
I later learned my husband had trouble being my main support because he was on my right side with a window right in front of him. It was late at night so the entire room reflected back at him. And on his right, no one was noticing but the privacy curtain that they put up so the mom can’t see her insides being lifted out, was slowly falling down, revealing all the goings on in my nether regions. He was scared to look at my face for revealing his own fear, and I’m sure it didn’t help him to see mine. He has no stomach for blood and guts (literally!) so all her could do was look down and squeeze my hand. Poor guy. In retrospect I think it was the funniest part of the whole day.
My baby girl was born in a lightening storm September 17th, 2004 at 11:09 PM with an apgar score of 9. If I had laboured and delivered naturally she would have been born on her due date. She was gorgeous and perfect and unharmed. My bag of waters never broke so she was never exposed to the virus. I didn’t get to hold her for an hour because she was whisked away to an incubator due to some fluid in her lungs. They say when a baby comes out vaginally the journey down the birth canal squeezes all that fluid out, but because she was lifted up and out of me, that never happened. My arms were aching to hold her when she finally breastfed. My midwife was there to help me and my daughter did so easily. I fell in love with her immediately, but I think the drugs affected my interest in keeping her in the room with me, which affected our bonding during the time I was in the hospital (three days). I was so tired from not sleeping for three days and I was scared I couldn’t meet her needs if she was next to me that I requested the nurses keep her and bring her to me when she was hungry. They listened and brought her to me around every two hours, but I still live with the guilt of missing out on that important early bonding. I have been trying to make up for it ever since we got home and sometimes I wonder if my daughter’s behavioural problems and challenges with Autism spectrum-like issues have anything to do with it. The best thing about the cesarean for me was the catheter. It was amazing not to have to get out of bed to pee for 24 hours!
I’m so thankful to that receptionist who found out about the rapid-screening herpes test. If we hadn’t gone to do that I have no idea what might have happened, what choice I might have made.
To this day it’s a mystery where I got the virus. Neither I nor my husband had ever had a cold sore, and cheating was not an issue, so we think one of us was possibly an asymptomatic carrier which resulted in an outbreak when my body was most vulnerable. And I never had another outbreak until three weeks before the birth of my second daughter, although that one was much smaller and disappeared before she was born, safely in the comfort of our own home. Yes, I’m proud to say I did eventually get my homebirth, and a HBAC to boot! So there you go. That’s my story.
Related posts:
- Happy Birthday Baby! A Birth Story
- A Successful HBAC, A Failed Birth Plan.
- Effects of Medicated Birth on Breastfeeding
- Self-Attachment: Smart Babies Want to Breastfeed
- The Canadian Maternity Experiences Survey: My Answers
Tags: cesarean, HBAC, homebirth, hospital birth, midwives, VBAC
Wow….thank you for being so brave and sharing such a personal story!
I got diagnosed with herpes 4 weeks before my son was born, and remember the fear of the c-section. I’m glad you were able to experience a birth like you wanted the second time. My herpes also only came out while I was pregnant, and we figured not to let it come out with the second pregnancy by putting me on suppression meds 4 weeks before my daughters birth. I remember blogging about it, and the negative results I got. I hope everyone respects you and stays polite.
WOW how brave! im so glad you chose to share your story, i loved it! what a strange way to find out and end up with a c/s. my goodness! I am so happy you finally got your homebirth too. YAY!
Melodie, thank you for sharing, and being so brave and wonderful!! What a horrible and scary thing to have happen. It makes sense that a latent virus WOULD come out during pregnancy though! You must have been so disappointed. I also had a cesarean for my first baby, interrupting my plans for a natural childbirth, and it just about broke me in two. But I had a gorgeous VBAC with #3 (#2 is adopted) and am grateful every day.
There is an element of birth that is wild. Animal. Beyond our direction. And it really is our job to set ourselves up as much as possible for success in natural childbirth, and then let the birth unfold as it will, because that wildness cannot be contained or dictated. You did everything you could, I did everything I could, we all do the best we can. You are wonderful. In no way ever did you cause your daughter’s Autism spectrum issues. No. Human animals are adaptable. If my son can heal from utterly changing primary caregivers FOUR TIMES, your daughter can heal from intermittent separation in the first hours after her birth. She wasn’t lying in the cold eaten by wolves; she was warm and cozy in the nursery, supervised by nice nurses who brought her in to breastfeed and respected your wishes for feedings. You’re wonderful.
I wrestle with my own cesarean birth memories and guilt, so I know where you are coming from.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing. Honesty is the only way we can truly navigate life, and help each other, and heal from our wounds.
xo
♥
how brave you are!
thank you so much for sharing this memorable story!
btw, i hv the same bday as your daughter!
happy birthday, little girl! you have a wonderful mom!
What a powerful story. I can’t imagine how painful it must have been for you to give up your homebirth that first time, but how fortunate it was to have all the information you needed to make an informed decision.
I believe each birth is an opportunity for mothers to learn and heal, including cesarean birth. Feeling whatever you feel about your experience is your right, but I’m so proud you were able to write this story “out loud” here.
Thanks for your blog and your honesty.
Wow, what an incredible story! I find it amazing that no one had seen a presentation like yours before … and the RN in me desperately wants to see that picture. Because I’m weird like that.
Thank you for sharing your story – you are a brave, brave woman putting this in the blogosphere. But you know what? I have faith that people will respect your choices and your story
@Kim – Thanks for your kind comment. Unfortunately for you, and fortunately for me
those pictures are long gone. I immediately deleted them from the digital camera after they were sent off to the CDC. The CDC might have them of course, but I doubt they are accessible. A part of the reason no one assumed they were herpes was because herpes simplex 2 presents differently than simplex 1 and since they were very close to my genitals they assumed if it was herpes it would be simplex 2. Also I didn’t have the accompanying flu-like symptoms that go along with a primary outbreak. Plus, I guess they didn’t look like your typical simplex 1 outbreak either.
But I totally understand your interest!
@Karen – I do feel a certain sense of having closed a chapter in writing this here. I have never doubted my reasons for needing a cesarean like so many other moms who’ve had to go that route, but the disclosure of the other issue, something so taboo, has been freeing. Thank you.
@Melissa – I teared up a little reading your comment. Thank you for saying all that. It helps a lot.
Yes, thank you for being brave enough to share your story. I don’t know how you can second-guess yourself, it sounds like you made wonderful, thoughtful, loving decisions through out the whole process. I am glad you eventually got your home birth!
What a story! Happy birthday to your daughter. I’m glad you took the time to document her birth. Even though it wasn’t the way you had imagined, it’s still her birth and it’s still beautiful!
I’m thrilled right along with you that she was ok.
Thank you for posting! It might help some random reader who happens to develop similar things. Maybe she (or a birth partner reading this) can think, “hmm, let’s test for this.”
Thank you for sharing! I feel at peace with my c-section too! I TOTALLY believe the key is realizing that the SITUATION is totally out of your control, while being educated and assertive enough to keep the DECISIONS in your control!
What an incredible story!! You’re so brave for sharing.
I’m so happy you had a happy ending and and HBAC too!!
Congrats!
thank you so much for posting this. i was about 5 months pregnant when i found out i was positive. i have no idea how i got it or from who. i was tested all the time, and i was in a serious relationship for a long time. towards the end before we broke up, i had a sore but i thought it was irritation from sex after shaving, this happened twice. but it never showed up in my tests. i thought nothing of it! i was put on medication while pregnant to avoid a breakout. which was successful. i couldn’t imagine being in your position. but now i am staring to wonder if my ex gave it to me and i didn’t break out until a year into our relationship or if i was a carrier like you and stress made it show up.
i am also curious about you thinking your daughter’s autism could be linked to the lack of bonding at birth?
Melodie,
Wow! Has it been 5 years already? I know how hard that was for you to go through, much less share. What an amazing story, for the vivid details and the heartbreak. I teared up a bit.
Mel, thank you so much for sharing that. I imagine it was cathartic to write. I’m so glad you returned to birth with your midwife – as traumatic as it was, I imagine it would have been much worse without her.
When I first announced my pregnancy to friends and family, and my desire for a natural birth, a good friend who adopted his son wrote me a nice email. He said his son was born through a c-section and despite that, they have bonded really well … and that I should try to be prepared for anything, and that bonding still happens even days later
thank you for this story. i can only imagine what you were going through those last few days – going through tests and having contractions! i too gave birth via c-section … after laboring 8 hours and opening all the way to 10cm… baby’s heartbeat dropped while i was pushing and so had to go through emergency cs. it broke my husband’s heart more than it did mine… as he was very much hoping for a natural birth. in the end – it just makes us realise how miraculous the birthing process is – and how God and nature will do everything to make things ok.
Thanks for sharing your story Melodie. We need more information on the web about pregnancy and herpes, there just isn’t enough out there. I wrote about my own experience with pregnancy and GH here, and posted some general guidelines for deciding if you should go ahead with a vaginal birth even in the event of an outbreak here:
Herpes and vaginal birth
You definitely did the right thing by having a c-section, especially 1) with a primary outbreak, and 2) lesions in the birth canal. It was the safest way to go, and I would have done the same in your position.
Thanks so very much for sharing your story!! I also had a c-section due to herpes. The stresses of pregnancy caused me to have outbreak after outbreak, so in the end I decided to have a planned c-section. It was an extremely difficult decision to not have a natural birth, but at the same time I was deeply grateful to have the option.
@Stephanie – I have a girlfriend who is an Early Childhood Educator who frequents conferences about these types of things. She attended one on early attachment and another on gestational development and the mind-body connection (or something along those lines). She talked to me about how the stress I went through may have caused my daughter to be born with the stress she has. Not something I wanted to hear let me tell you! I haven’t done the research myself and it is “new” information, but I have heard about this type of thing here and there. Just more reasons to incite guilt and “blame the mother!” as if we aren’t already trying to be perfect!
@Anne – I have a friend who has an atypical presentation of herpes that comes and goes sometimes without her even being sure she has an outbreak as it presents as a rash. She too wants to have a planned c-section, even though otherwise she would be birthing naturally. These are hard decisions to make but you are right that it is wonderful to have the option in the first place.
Happy Birthday to your sweet baby girl. Ok. So she’s not quite a baby anymore, but she’s still YOUR baby, I’m sure. (It’s my sweet baby’s birthday today, too. She’s 17!)
Thank you for sharing such a deeply personal experience. I know you’ve helped other by sharing.
What an INCREDIBLE story! And so very personal, too. Both of my daughters are Cesarean births, and I always find it interesting to hear the stories that lead up to that birth experience. Yours is one of the most fascinating I have read! Again, thank you for sharing it.
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Happy belated birthday to your little girl!
I went into labour with my first at 34 weeks, completely unprepared. I was planning to birth in the hospital but hadn’t packed my bag yet. You should have SEEN the massive bag I packed the 2nd time. It was like my talisman against repeating the experience of premature birth / hemorrhage / NICU / days in the hospital. After the first time I wanted to be prepared for anything.
I’m very glad that your second birth experience was what you wanted. And I think you made the best decisions you could under the circumstances. We can beat ourselves up after the fact, but in the moment when you were exhausted and recovering from surgery you did the best you could.
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Mel- This was truly an incredible birth story. I applaud your bravery for opening up and telling such a heartfelt personal story. I also had an atypical presentation of HSV II newly diagnosed at 37 weeks with my 3rd baby. Never had a suspicious outbreak during a pregnancy before this baby. I did not have many options in 1988. I had a C/S.. and lots of problems afterwards. I will tell the story sometime. Thank you for giving me the courage!
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[...] just leave well enough alone. I was bound and determined to breastfeed. After being forced out of medical necessity to have a c-section instead of my planned homebirth, I knew I could suffer through anything to [...]
Thank you so much for sharing!! You have no idea how long I searched the internet for a story like this, well actually, I have been searching for about a month, because that is how long I’ve been diagnosed. I was diagnosed with HSV Type 1 when I was about 36 weeks pregnant, having never even had a cold sore. I have been with my husband for 6 years and he has never had a cold sore either or anything “down there” either (neither me). I desperately wanted to have a natural childbirth, I was obsessed with it. I actually wanted the pain!! Who can say that? I wanted the experience. I told everyone I knew, and everyone knew that I wanted a natural childbirth, so when at about 37 weeks they scheduled the c-section on december 15th related to a primary HSV Type 1 outbreak, everyone REALLY wanted to know why. It was hard to find good reasoning to tell everyone. It came to “It’s just a personal decision between the doctor, my husband, and I”. Most people accepted this answer and others pryed, wanting to know “yeah, but why?” This fear and depression that was caused by constant questioning made me stay indoors as much as possible and really ignore phone calls, etc. I just didn’t want to have to think about it. I am 38 weeks now, yesterday made 38 weeks, and am scheduled for a c-section next tuesday, dec.15th. I really can’t wait, because I live in constant fear that my water will break, exposing my innocent little baby to this virus. You know, and it doesn’t matter how much you trust your spouse, when something like this comes up all of a sudden, you start to wonder about fidelity, especially as the pregnant spouse, because you feel very unsexy, unwanted, etc. We were going to test him, but decided that it didn’t matter, we were husband and wife and that was all there was about it, so we did not end up testing him and I’m glad we didn’t. This has been a very hard thing to swallow and I had many pity parties and “it’s not fair” parties, wallowing in my sadness and despair. I’m still not totally accepting of this, but as I lean on God and just know that this is His plan, everyday seems a little brighter. For “Faith is not believing God can–it is knowing that He will”. And He will bring me through this. Once again, thank you for this post.
[...] the end, I ended up having an emergency cesarean. I was crushed. I had refused to read up on them because I was so certain I would get my home birth [...]
When I was pregnant with my daughter (now 16 months old) I really wanted a natural delivery, but that did not happen. Three days or so before she was born I felt as if I had the flu and I had terrible sores on the roof of my mouth and very swollen gums. I went to the hospital and told them about the sores, severe headaches, a slight fever, and swollen glands. They told me this was nothing. Just my body’s response to the early phases of labor as I was 1 cm dilated and sent me home. I was convinced the symptoms were a byproduct of pregnancy and child birth. Anyway, three days later I went into labor but was very disappointed that my doctor was still out of town. I refused all medication and labored happily for 12 hours making it to 6 cm (secretly hoping I would make it to shift change because I found the doctor very impatient and pushy). Then all of a sudden he brought in another doctor who said it was the hospital’s policy to begin petocin after 12 hrs, to speed up the labor. I reluctantly agreed. As soon as the petocin kicked in the monitor indicated that the baby’s heart rate stalled with every contraction and I was whisked into the OR for a C-section with no further discussion. The spinal left me shaking and unable to hold the baby for 6 hour after delivery. If all this was not bad enough, I still could not eat because of the sores in my mouth. By the time my doctor returned two days after she was born I had not eaten in 5 or 6 days and was really feeling faint because I was breastfeeding. I relayed the whole story to my doctor who looked concerned, said I may have been suffering from some kind of virus but as it seemed to be clearing up it may have been due to the delivery. When the baby was only five days old and we had only been home for two I noticed she felt warm and the the next morning she had a spot on her chest. It looked like a chicken pock to me. She had a slight fever so I took her to the pediatrician who immediately said “It’s HSV. Take her straight to the hospital. Three days later when the tests came back he was right and she was put on IV Acyclovir. She recovered with no apparent ill effects but was kept on the medication until she was 1. I went through the opposite form of guilt. If I had not held or kissed or cuddled with my daughter she would not have contracted a permanent and potentially fatal disease. I was dealing with the emotions of my diagnosis (turns out I had a primary HSV-1 infection when she was born) but also her diagnosis and post-pardom depression at the same time. It was difficult. As to the autism thing, you should look up the link between autism and exposure to non-symptomatic HSV. The research is tentative but all autism research is at this point. Turns out in children latent HSV can take up residence in the nerves of the brain. I doubt not holding your child had much to do with it. I know plenty of parents who sent their children to the nursery, then daycare, then put them in front of the TV and their kids are “fine”. Luckily my daughter is now 16 months old and shows no signs of any developmental problems but that is thanks to an early diagnosis and treatment. Her infection, if left untreated could have easily cause severe brain damage. I also postponed her MMR and chicken pox vaccines until she’s two in light of her HSV diagnosis. I hope this story can help other mothers recognize the symptoms of a primary HSV infection during pregnancy and keep a close eye on the health of their newborns. Time and treatment are of the utmost importance.