In April, Jacklyn Rodriguez of Boston was about 28 weeks pregnant when the impossible happened — she was diagnosed with COVID-19. Eventually, a trip to the hospital would lead to a stay in the intensive care unit. During that time, Rodriguez would need to be intubated and sedated. Little did the mom-to-be know that a life-saving decision was made while she was unconscious, and a team of doctors and nurses carefully worked to deliver her baby 10 weeks early to save both of their lives.
Rodriguez says before she knew it, her symptoms become alarming.
Speaking with WCVB, the mom recalled how she was “so short of breath.”
“I couldn't even walk. I was like, if I can't, that means my baby can't breathe. I really need to get to the ER,” she said.
Rodriguez was immediately admitted to the ICU at Tufts Medical Center. It was clear to her medical team that she was very, very sick.
They decided to intubate, a process where a tube is placed in a patient’s throat to help move air in and out of the lungs, the Beth Israel Lahey Hospital — Winchester Hospital website noted.
“Even with forcing as much oxygen as we can into her, her oxygen levels are not staying high enough,” Angela Derochers, the nurse manager at Tufts Medical Center for OB-GYN, robotics and urology explained to ABC News.
Rodriguez’s baby was at serious risk.
“We called the OB attending [physician] up, and he looked at me and he said, ‘We need to deliver this baby because they could both die,’” Derochers said.
Things started to move very quickly.
“[Doctors] said, 'She's not doing well. We're taking the baby now.' It's not an OR, not a ton of lighting, not a ton of people that know critical procedures that could help. I was yelling out the door, 'Can you get me this? Can you get me this?'” Derochers told WCVB.
Rodriguez’s husband, Raul Luzardo, admitted he was scared when he was told what was happening.
“When they tell you that she’s really bad — ‘We got to do this now, if you don’t do this, she’s getting worse and both are going to be in danger' — I couldn’t believe it, man. I was like, ‘Oh my god.' I was nervous. I was really nervous,” he told ABC News.
“I was just in shock,” Derochers added. “She was still intubated. … She literally had machines breathing for her and circulating her blood."
The mom was placed on a ECMO machine, meant to help pump blood to the rest of her body.
A day later, she woke up to find that her son, Julian, had been delivered 10 weeks early while she was under sedation.
“I had no knowledge that he was being born,” she told ABC News.
It would be some time before Rodriguez could meet and hold her baby.
The mom was still positive for the coronavirus and needed to be kept away from her newborn while she was recovering.
Derochers recalled the moment that Rodriguez woke up and realized what had happened.
“I look over and her eyes are open and she's looking around,” the nurse manager told WCVB. “It's amazing to me to see her, within 24 hours later with her cell phone looking at her baby.”
Luzardo pulled double duty and would come by to visit their new son in the hospital while also caring for their other three children at home.
Once Rodriguez was well enough to be moved out of the ICU, she was allowed to visit Julian through a window. It had been two weeks since she gave birth.
“I was the last one he met, first two weeks of his life. Broke my heart a little bit but you know it's fine because I'm alive and he's OK,” she said.
Rodriguez finally tested negative for COVID-19 and was allowed to return home.
Julian would have to remain under hospital supervision for 83 days total, according to ABC News.
“She’s been a warrior, man, first of all. She’s been a h–l of a woman," her husband told the news program. "She did it. She’s alive, and that’s all that matters."
Rodriguez is now home, and Dorochers continues to check in with the couple.
She even took it upon herself to surprise the mom with a special treat. When she was still at the hospital, Rodriguez once said that she wished she was home in her own bed.
“Her husband starts laughing and he says, 'Well, it's not much better at home. Your side has a divot in it,'" Dorochers told WCVB. Working with other nurses on staff, they created an ongoing online fundraiser to buy beds for COVID-19 patients, who are often in bed for weeks at a time. She also reached out to the American Sleep Therapy, which gave Rodriguez and Lazardo a new bed while she recuperates at home.
In other happy news, Julian has finally been discharged from the hospital, and his parents told ABC News they’re just so grateful to the hospital staff.
“They did an amazing job,” the mom said. “They did everything that they could. I appreciate it to the bottom of my heart.”
Derochers added that the experience has given her something too. “It just reminds me, and all of us in health care, of why we do what we do,” she explained.
