When Callie Colwick of Texas found out that she was expecting her second child, she never could have anticipated that, instead of having her pregnancy end with the delivery of a healthy baby, she would end up with no child to take home and the loss of both of her legs below the knee, as well as two fingers. Even after all of that loss, she's actually lucky to be alive at all. "I was 27 when this happened–no one expects a 27-year-old mom to die," she said in an interview. "I truly feel like I am living on borrowed time now."
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Callie's complications were a result of placenta accreta, a high-risk pregnancy condition that also affected Kim Kardashian during her pregnancies with her first two children. According to the Mayo Clinic, "Placenta accreta is a serious pregnancy condition that occurs when the placenta grows too deeply into the uterine wall." Callie's complications were so severe that she spent over a year in the hospital. Now that she is back at home with her 4-year-old daughter and husband, she is sharing her story to "help and inspire others."
Callie found out there was a problem with her pregnancy at 15 weeks.
She started bleeding heavily, and when she went to the hospital, she was told that her baby could come at any time and probably wouldn't survive. “They put me in the pregnancy wing. Here we were in this room, surrounded by women giving birth and babies crying and we were told that Quinn had no chance of survival and we were just waiting to give birth to him,” she told South West News Service. “It was a solemn few weeks.”
Her baby was stillborn.
Doctors decided to induce labor. “They broke my waters and he was born. Quinn was too tiny to survive–he went straight to heaven,” she said. Callie almost didn't survive herself. After the stillbirth, she was in a bad way.
Usually after a mother gives birth, the placenta detaches from the uterine wall, but with placenta accreta, all or part of the placenta stays attached and can cause severe bleeding. “My uterus was hemorrhaging blood,” Callie said. “Doctors were pumping blood into me as soon as it was flowing out.”
Callie developed septic shock.
Callie developed an infection in her uterus that led to septic shock, a condition that causes blood pressure to plunge and organs to shut down. The infection in her uterus started to spread throughout her body. “My world went black. That infection overrode my entire body,” she said. “They had to take out my uterus. The sepsis shut down my kidneys and my lungs so I was on a breathing machine.”
Tissue in her feet and parts of her left hand were too damaged to save.
Doctors had to amputate both of her legs below the knee and two of the fingers on her left hand. Callie went home in March 2018, and it wasn't until April 2019 that her insurance company approved prosthetics for her, but it wouldn't approve a custom wheelchair for her, even though she can't push a regular wheelchair on her own. Can you believe that nonsense?
Thanks to a GoFundMe campaign, Callie can finally get a custom wheelchair.
When her insurance company would not come through for the custom wheelchair, someone set up a GoFundMe campaign. Part of the description of the campaign reads:
"She had a custom made wheel chair built for her, but the insurance company denied her claim. Her current wheelchair is borrowed. Because it doesn’t have guards around the wheels, it destroys her clothes. Not just that, she can’t push it around other than on a flat surface."
Happily, the campaign's goal has been reached, and Callie can get that custom wheelchair she needs. We thank her for sharing her story and helping to spread awareness of just how dangerous placenta accreta can be.
