Casey Gould Rosenberger was 33 when she delivered her son. She and her husband, high school sweethearts, had been together for 19 years. They had a rocky road trying to get pregnant, with many miscarriages and infertility issues along the way. Once Casey finally became pregnant, she had a healthy and “normal” pregnancy.  She was due on Halloween, but she went into labor a day later on November 1, 2024. Casey had a birthing plan, wishing to go into labor naturally, yet after no changes her medical team decided to give her Pitocin to induce labor. Casey labored for 36 hours, and at 9:30 pm she was fully dilated and ready to push. The doctor entered the room and everything went dark for Casey, a darkness no one else saw, yet she was still awake. Her son’s heart rate dropped and she was wheeled into the operating room for an emergency C-section. Casey looked at the doctor and said, “I think I’m about to die.”

She had to be put under for the surgery and her son, Archer, was delivered in minutes. Casey began hemorrhaging so the doctors placed a Jada device, which clips to the wall of the uterus like a vacuum to stop the bleeding, and administered a blood transfusion. Even though she had these serious complications, everyone believed she would be ok. In the post-operating room, Casey was able to talk. She complained of shortness of breath and just a minute or two afterwards she became unresponsive.

Another doctor visited at this time and noted suspicion of Peripartum Cardiomyopathy (PPCM), a serious heart failure condition where the heart muscle weakens and enlarges, developing late in pregnancy or within five months after childbirth, with no other cause found, so cardiology was called in. Casey’s medical team struggled to stabilize her and discussed the possibility of intubation. As the ICU team came in to get Casey, she stopped breathing. She was rushed to the ICU as they manually breathed for her.  Casey aspirated, her heart failed, and then her lungs went into failure.

In the ICU, cardiology’s scan on Casey’s heart revealed her ejection fraction (EF) was 13% (normal is 55-70%). Faced with a decision to transport Casey to a heart transplant hospital in Cincinnati or insert the Impella heart pump, Casey’s medical team brought her to the catheterization lab and the Impella was inserted, allowing her heart to rest and recover. She was put in a medically induced coma for two days until her heart was evaluated on November 4^th showing it was trying to work on its own. A sign of hope. Casey met her son, Archer, that evening. She still asks her family what it was like as she was out of it from her trauma.

“When I was in the hospital, I just wanted to be home, but then it was hard at first being at home. When dealing with your heart, it’s scary to think you aren’t surrounded by medical professionals if something goes wrong. It’s been a good year, though, and I get to be here to watch my son grow up. It really gives me a new respect for motherhood and a whole new outlook on life being able to see him grow up everyday.”

Casey and her husband Ben have been in therapy for PTSD and birth trauma with a very experienced therapist. “I wouldn’t have made it through this year without her.”  Casey knew they needed to speak to someone, but it was hard to find the right person. It took her a while to accept that she needed this. She thought she could handle it on her own at first, but seeing Ben’s trauma as well made her realize they needed to go through this together. Through therapy Casey can unpack things that happened to her, with Ben constantly connecting the dots for her.

Today, Casey wants others like her to be comfortable saying something if it doesn’t feel right, especially when you don’t have any awareness about symptoms of PPCM or other complications that can happen. “Looking back, I knew I needed to speak up for myself when I felt the room go dark. With this being my first baby, I didn’t know what to expect; I didn’t think something was just wrong, I felt impending doom within a second and thought ‘oh, I’m going to die.’ It’s not like me to speak up so I’m surprised and thankful that I did.”

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