A 34-year-old women who went into labor the day before her eighth wedding anniversary was posed with perhaps the most difficult decision for a mother to endure: have a c-section and save her unborn child's life, or wait it out and save her own.
Karisa Bugal, of Colorado, developed a rare and unpreventable condition called amniotic fluid embolism when she went into labor, which ultimately took her life.
"The amniotic fluids surrounding the baby or part of the baby's skin or hair gets into the mother's bloodstream and that causes catastrophic shutdown of all the organs," Dr. Kelly Gerow told KUSA-TV. "We don't know how to prevent it. We don't know how to keep it from happening at all."
The condition was causing the fetus' heart rate to drop. Without hesitation she opted for the c-section, knowing that she likely would not survive the delivery, reported Cosmopolitian.
When Bugal awoke from the surgery on the morning of Nov. 4 her last words were "How big is he?" when staff told her Declan Jay, her newborn son, survived.
Hospital staff told her he was a healthy 7-pound, 4-ounce baby before she was rushed to the intensive care unit where she died soon after.
Bugal is survived by her husband Wes Bugal and her two children. The couple's oldest daughter, Mallory, is a toddler.
Wes is now faced with the challenge of raising two children who will eventually ask him the complicated question, "Where's mommy?"
A GoFundMe page was set up in memory of Bugal to help the family get through the short-term concerns associated with the tragedy. The goal of $20,000 was raised in just over one day. Over $43,000 was raised at the time this article was published.
