Nichole and her baby Levi David's Medical Bills

This has been a very difficult story to sit down and write. On Friday 13th of Jan, around 11pm our youngest son was born. This was my 5th pregnancy, and while it left me very tired it was really my healthiest one. Despite being a previous c-section mama I had every hope of a safe and healthy home birth. I had labored at home for around 30hr before we transfer to the hospital due to my water having been broken for 24 of those hours without real progress. I knew going in that a c-section was really my only option at that point and chose a hospital that had an anesthesiologist on hand that had been recommended for home birth transfers. Despite this recommendation, we were not treated well by staff at all. Still, by day 2 I was healing well, Levi was healthy, & we were actually on track to leave the hospital on time. In preparation for leaving, I started getting Levi dressed in his going-home outfit. I noticed where the hospital tracker had been on his ankle appeared to have rubbed raw & I asked the nurse for something to put on it. What followed has been one of the most traumatic events of my life.

Nurse after the nurse came in to look at Levi's ankle only for them to ask to bring in someone else. Eventually, the neonatologist showed up, took one look at his ankle and declared that our son had herpes and had to be transferred to the NICU for treatment immediately. Not having any history of this naturally we were upset, confused, and scared. The hospital refused to allow us to pursue a second opinion, to confirm the diagnosis before treatment, or even transfer to a hospital closer to home. We were told that we had two options, we could transfer to NICU for immediate treatment or sign a refusal of treatment and DCS would meet us at the hospital door for medical neglect and we could lose all of our children. Hospital security was already at our room door at this point & DCS had already been contacted.

We spent the next 3 days in the NICU being treated like criminals by most of the nursing staff. After only 1 day Levi's IV failed. It took over 6 tries to place it again & they discussed placing a PIC line. He ended up with a cranial IV. His blood samples took 2 days to come back negative, but his skin samples took nearly two weeks. We were told we would be unable to leave the hospital until all of his samples came back negative but ended up lucking out with a new pediatrician who allowed us to leave on day 3 as Levi had no further symptoms, his blood samples were negative, and his ankle had healed so much so quickly. This was under the condition that we came back if his skin samples came back positive and follow up with our regular pediatrician as soon as possible. This same pediatrician stated when she called back with his skin samples that his injured ankle was probably just caused by the hospital tracker.

In order to stay with my child and follow him to the NICU I had to discharge myself. I spent my first week post c-section recovering on a hospital recliner and using a wheelchair as a walker to get myself down the hallway to the restroom. Food was not allowed in the NICU so I ended up taking most of my pain medication on an empty stomach. By the time we left I could barely walk & my stomach was in constant pain. My post op edema had swollen my feet so that they looked like hoagie rolls & I was walking on the sides of my feet. Worse than this was the emotional damage. Seeing my youngest son in the NICU and dealing with DCS brought so much back of my oldest son's NICU stay. The judgment, the pain, the loss. The entire experience was like a nightmare tailor-made to bring on my worst experience with PSTD in over a decade. I left that hospital so depleted and weak I felt like a shell of myself.

Family friends offered to start this GoFund me to help us with the financial burden of these hospital expenses and the added time taken off of work.

This experience was a blatant attempt at medical kidnapping by a hospital that injured our child and ignored our consent and medical history and caused lasting trauma for multiple members of our family.