'The miracle we needed.' After COVID almost killed her, Coast mom holds baby for 1st time

Oct. 22—Nurses at Ocean Springs Hospital call their long-suffering former COVID-19 patient Taylor Manning the "miracle" they needed after she narrowly survived the deadly delta variant surge.

For Manning, the miracle was her newborn daughter Maevi, born prematurely but COVID-negative by emergency C-section at the beginning of her hospital stay.

Perhaps both Manning girls — now home together in Ocean Springs after first meeting on day 47 of 52 days apart — could be considered a miracle.

Taylor, 31, was released from the hospital on Sept. 24, five days before the Centers for Disease Control released an urgent alert for pregnant women to get vaccinated against the coronavirus at a time when 161 had died, with 22 deaths in August alone. Ten percent of the deaths occurred in Mississippi.

Fifteen pregnant women have died of the virus in the state, health department officials said in early September, with eight since the end of July. An additional 73 fetal deaths of unborn babies occurred from moms who had COVID.

"Here we had a mom who never had a chance to hold her baby, who had two other young children at home. That's what was really hard," said Stephanie Adams, one of Manning's nurses in the ICU. "She went downhill and day by day, not knowing if she'd pull through or not pull through."

"I would go home praying that she would make it through the night and that she would be there when I got back," added another ICU nurse, Lianna Cooper.

"It felt like my duty to get that mother home to her baby... If we would have lost her, that would be dire for our unit, and I'm sure the entire hospital itself. She was definitely the miracle we needed."

Manning is unvaccinated but said she is not anti-vaccine. The CDC released new data on Aug. 11 stressing COVID-19 vaccines are safe while pregnant, while Manning was still in the hospital. Like some other pregnant women, she said she had been advised by doctors to delay getting her shots.

The gravity of Manning's COVID experience should push pregnant women on the Coast to get their vaccine, said Dr. Ijlal Babar, pulmonologist and director of Pulmonary Critical Care at Singing River Health System who cared for her during her stay.

"When somebody is as sick as she is, it is a theme for us to contact the family, and kind of make them aware of how bad things are and the possibility that people don't survive this. You know, our experiences have about a 50% survival. And so, that is what happened," said Babar.

"I think [Taylor's story is] a very good example. And it's an example that actually has a happy ending... Because it could still easily have ended like a lot of other people we've seen"

Singing River has seen two other pregnant women in intensive care — one at Pascagoula and one at Gulfport. Both were "fine," said a hospital spokesperson, and Manning's case was the "worst case" they've had.

Manning's will to live for her newborn, new husband and two children from a previous relationship helped her fight the illness, she said, with help from a tireless team of nurses and physicians at Singing River and Memorial's Select Specialty Hospital — Gulf Coast, where Manning went after her ICU stay.

"I was most worried about my family. I mean, I just got married in February. And so I was thinking about my husband at home with a brand new baby with a 12-year-old and a 9-year-old stepchild that if something were to happen to me, he has no right to," Manning said in an interview with the Sun Herald, her voice raspy from an earlier tracheotomy.

"And we just bought a house. I mean, we built our life here, within a year. And had I not made it. I don't know what would have happened."

Singing River doted on Manning with a particular attentiveness, understanding the stakes of her survival. Once, when the mother took a steep downturn, the Singing River staff recorded her heartbeat on a cellphone and transferred the soundbite to a stuffed teddy bear — a gift for her daughter in case she didn't make it.

"That day was really emotional, just recording her heartbeat, not knowing if that would be the only thing that the baby would ever have of her mom," said Adams, who recorded the heartbeat with a doppler and a cellphone.

On Manning's last day, she exited her ICU room to the sound of a lullaby, the tune labor and delivery plays throughout the hospital each time a baby is born. Manning never got to hear it when she had Maevi, because she had already been intubated and sedated.

"She didn't get to hear her song," said Adams. "So as she walked out, we had them playing the lullaby."

53 nights in the hospital

Manning said she didn't think anything of her initial COVID symptoms, which began in mid-July. Historically, she's had difficult pregnancies, she said, with symptoms that mirrored the virus: intense nausea and a nasty headache.

She tested positive at 35 weeks pregnant, after a routine COVID test when she went to the hospital for fluids after she couldn't keep food down for over 24 hours.

"I was vomiting a lot, just headache, typical pregnancy symptoms," Manning said.

"They sent me up to labor and delivery for fluid. And they did a COVID swab, just as a protocol. And within 15 minutes, they admitted me and said you have COVID and we're moving you down to a room."

Singing River monitored her for 48 hours, Manning said, before discharging her when the symptoms subsided.

According to Dr. Babar, the start of Manning's lengthy stay at the hospital began July 31, when she was admitted for shortness of breath with COVID.

She stayed in the labor and delivery unit while her symptoms worsened slightly. On Aug. 2, Manning's OB-GYN suggested they induce her so she could give birth before COVID worsened.

Manning agreed, and had her baby by emergency C-section around 5 a.m.Aug. 3. She had been intubated before the birth and was moved, while sedated, to the ICU immediately.

Manning didn't get see her daughter — named Maevi after Taylor's grandmother Mae — until well after birth. Maevi was born three days premature and never tested positive for COVID, said Taylor's husband, Daniel.

A math teacher at Ocean Springs Middle School who is currently on leave, Daniel tested positive for COVID just before the birth but was allowed in the hospital the day Maevi was born.

"I was allowed into the hospital, but I pretty much sat in a waiting room for about eight hours the morning she gave birth," Daniel said. "Before I finally see my wife being rolled out of an elevator into the ICU."

Manning was mostly unconscious and sedated after birth, but was able to FaceTime her husband and see photos of her daughter, who was in the newborn intensive care unit until Aug. 13, when she went home with Daniel.

"We had received pictures of the child from her husband and we would show her pictures and try to console her about being away from the baby. We exposed her to the child as much as we possibly could," said Cooper. "There were times she'd want to look at the baby, and there were times she'd be upset and we'd have to console her."

Manning stayed stable and intubated in the ICU until Aug. 5, when she self-extubated herself, or pulled the ventilator tube out of her own throat. The hospital had to reintubate her a few days later, Babar said, when her health rapidly declined.

Hospital administration called Daniel during this period, preparing him for possible decisions about her life.

"There was definitely a least a solid week that fell very dark and gloomy. And we were faced with the realization that the odds weren't exactly in our favor at that point... we realistically had to think about the possibility that she may not make it. That was very difficult," said Daniel.

The real "make or break" moment was the Aug. 19 tracheotomy, a surgery creating an opening in the neck that acts as a windpipe to allow direct access to the breathing tube, Daniel and the health care workers said.

Babar said tracheotomies are performed in COVID cases when patients are expected to have a difficult time breathing on their own if taken off a ventilator. Manning's surgery — tricky because of her increased heart and breathing rate due to anxiety — went well.

After that, things began turning up.

Manning was moved to rehab on Sept. 8 and celebrated her 31 birthday there on Sept. 19, when her husband planned a surprise — the first meeting between Maevi and Manning.

"The thoughts began to run on what to get her for her birthday. And all I could think about is what does she want most?" Daniel Manning said. "And I was like, if I can just find a way to get our baby in her arms for 5 minutes."

Daniel spoke with the nurses and then some administrators until finally securing a 15-minute window when the hospital transported her outside with an oxygen tank so she could meet her daughter.

"When my birthday came around, one of the nurses that I had ran in my room with some flowers and chocolate saying happy birthday," Manning said.

"We went downstairs and my husband walked up with the baby it was just overwhelming. And my heart rate was really high that day. And it kept hitting 150 and so I tried my best not to cry."

COVID-19 vaccines and pregnancy

Manning's illness came as national and state health experts started to anxiously push pregnant women to get their shots.

Full vaccination is "especially important" for all women who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant, according to the Mississippi State Department of Health's latest vaccination guidance, along with individuals 65 years of age and older, residents of long-term care facilities, health care workers and anyone with chronic underlying medical conditions.

"We do know that COVID is especially problematic and dangerous in pregnant women, but we also know it can be deadly for the baby in the womb," State Medical Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said during a recent press conference. "With COVID, we have seen a doubling of rate of fetal demise for the death of the baby in the womb after 20 weeks. It's been a real tragedy."

The CDC has reported more than 123,633 COVID-19 cases in pregnant women and 159 COVID-related deaths in pregnant women between Jan. 22, 2020 and Sept. 20, 2021, and along with the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the American College of OB-GYNs and other health officials, strongly supports vaccination for pregnant women.

Long road to recovery

Manning has been relearning to walk and regaining her voice following the removal of her prosthetic trachea. A Band-Aid covers the gaping hole at the bottom of her neck.

"I can walk with a walker. And I can walk about four or five steps. If I'm reaching for something stable. And that may feel risky... I lost so much muscle mass, and all my ligaments and just everything tightened up," she said. "I'm still very raspy because I've had tubes down my throat for two months."

Manning does physical therapy every day with her father, a longtime power lifter and trainer.

But igniting a bond with Maevi is Manning's top priority, she said. The process is happening slowly, with some success — like when the new mom was able to lactate while around her daughter, something she hadn't been able to do because of certain medications.

"It's unbelievable, as well as being exciting, because I haven't built that strong mother-daughter connection yet. It's getting there. It's more like I just showed up and there's a baby here," Manning said.

"As soon as we came in the door... I started leaking, which was crazy because I've been dry. And it was just me being around her."

But Manning said she doesn't know if she'll ever recover emotionally.

"I'm, I'm terrified. Every day, I still really sleep at night. Because I'm scared. I'm not gonna wake up. I'm scared. My oxygen is gonna stop functioning at night," she said, "I feel like I'm always gonna have a little bit of that PTSD from it."

This article and live event is supported by the Journalism and Public Information Fund, a fund of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.

___

(c)2021 The Sun Herald (Biloxi, Miss.)

Visit The Sun Herald (Biloxi, Miss.) at www.sunherald.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.