Mom's labor turns into fight for life after 1 symptom: "I think I'm about to die"

HealthWatch The scary symptom that a mom's labor was about to become a fight to survive: "I think I'm about to die" .chip { background-image: url('/fly/bundles/cbsnewscore/images/chip-bgd/chip-bgd-healthwatch.jpg'); } By Kerry Breen Kerry Breen News Editor Kerry Breen is a news editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University's Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News' TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use. Read Full Bio Kerry Breen April 18, 2026 / 8:00 AM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google Casey Gould wanted to be a mom her entire life. For a long time, it seemed like her dream wouldn't come true: She and her husband suffered three miscarriages, and infertility treatments weren't helping. In January 2024, Gould and her husband decided to stop trying. A month later, she was pregnant.Gould was worried, but her pregnancy was easy. She loved being pregnant. Her baby moved around all the time. There had been some swelling in the final stages of her pregnancy, but her doctors weren't concerned. When she finally went into labor, she wasn't worried about giving birth at all — she was just excited to meet her son."You think you're in the home stretch. You're good, you're healthy, he's healthy. All you have to do is get the baby here," Gould, 33, said. She went into labor on Nov. 1, 2024.  Casey Gould at her baby shower in September 2024. Casey Gould Her labor was long — it took 36 hours for her to be ready to push. At that point, "everything kind of felt wrong," she said. Her vitals looked good, and an epidural was controlling her pain, but Gould was suddenly gripped by "a sense of dread.""I was telling myself not to freak out, and then right behind the doctor, as she walked by, I saw, like, a black shadow. It's hard to explain, but if you looked in the corner of the room, it was almost like black shadows enveloping that corner," Gould said. "And then I looked o...