By Jessica Kenley

POTTER COUNTY, PA — At 26 years old, Kayla Wimbrough has already endured more than many people experience in a lifetime.

She has survived pregnancies marked by severe complications, repeated hemorrhaging, emergency surgeries, chronic and debilitating pain, blood clots, a hysterectomy, a surgical injury that went undetected for days, repeated hospitalizations, domestic violence, postpartum trauma, and the seemingly endless search for someone willing to listen when she says, simply, “Something is wrong.”

And through all of it, she has continued raising her children.

Today, Wimbrough is a mother of five, including a five-year-old daughter with autism and significant communication and developmental challenges. She cannot work because of her health. She lives with pain severe enough that she takes prescribed oxycodone simply to be able to move and function. She has more surgery ahead of her.

Yet somehow, every morning, she gets up and keeps going.

“I just keep pushing through,” Wimbrough said.

For her children.

Again.

And again.

And again.

That may be the simplest description of Wimbrough’s life.

A pregnancy that should have been a warning

Wimbrough’s medical nightmare began during her pregnancies.

Her first child was born in 2019. Although the epidural failed and labor was difficult, her daughter was ultimately born healthy.

Her second pregnancy, however, was dramatically different.

In 2021, Wimbrough developed placenta accreta, a serious pregnancy complication in which the placenta grows abnormally into the uterine wall. According to Wimbrough, doctors did not recognize the condition before delivery.

Her daughter had stopped growing and weighed only five pounds at 38 weeks.

Wimbrough remembers weeks of pain that felt like contractions.

“It felt like I was having contractions for weeks,” she said.

After labor was induced, Wimbrough delivered her baby. But the placenta would not come out.

Instead of immediately taking her to surgery, she said, medical personnel spent approximately 20 minutes attempting to pull the placenta free.

“I didn’t know what was going on,” Wimbrough said.

Eventually, she lost so much blood that she lost consciousness.

When she awoke, she said, she was undergoing a D&C procedure and could feel what was happening because the epidural was wearing off.

“I felt everything,” she said.

She also recalls being left with a towel inside her to control the bleeding, without being adequately informed that it had been placed there.

Most troubling to Wimbrough, she says, was what happened afterward: Her medical records reportedly described the problem as a retained placenta rather than documenting the placenta accreta she believes should have been recorded.

She would become pregnant again.

And the nightmare would repeat itself.

Pregnant, bleeding and living with abuse

Wimbrough’s third daughter, Serenity, was born in 2022.

During that pregnancy, she says, she repeatedly told medical providers that she believed the placenta problem had returned.

She was told it was unlikely.

After all, she had been told that placenta accreta was rare.

But Wimbrough was right.

Again, the placenta had grown abnormally into the uterine wall.

Again, she began hemorrhaging.

Again, she says she waited while her condition deteriorated.

“I’m sitting there with my hemoglobin and everything’s dropping,” she recalled, describing trying to hold her newborn while becoming increasingly weak from blood loss. Eventually, she had to hand the baby to her significant other because she was afraid she would pass out.

She remembers waiting approximately an hour for an operating room to become available.

During that time, she says, she could hear nurses joking in the hallways.

“I’m just sitting there, dying,” she said.

Her baby was eventually delivered, but the ordeal continued. Wimbrough said her daughter had been positioned face-first and was born with significant bruising. Wimbrough also suffered a painful cervical laceration.

And throughout this pregnancy and the others, Wimbrough was living in an abusive relationship.

She told Monarch Media that she experienced domestic violence while pregnant, including being put in a chokehold.

She also described postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety and postpartum sexual assault.

It is difficult to comprehend the sheer weight of all of that happening at once.

She was trying to survive pregnancy.

She was trying to survive medical emergencies.

She was trying to survive an abusive relationship.

And she was becoming a mother again.

The pregnancy that nearly took everything

Her fourth daughter, Juniper, was born August 16, 2024.

This pregnancy was, in Wimbrough’s words, the worst.

She says she experienced relentless pain that felt like contractions and became so severe that she would black out.

At one point, she begged to be induced.

She was ultimately sent to specialists because doctors were concerned about the pregnancy. The baby was measuring small, and Wimbrough had additional complications, including placenta previa.

Eventually, she was transferred to Pittsburgh because of concerns about the potential for catastrophic blood loss during delivery.

When Juniper was finally born, Wimbrough again found herself in the nightmare she had experienced before.

The placenta would not come out.

And again, she told the medical team that she had placenta accreta.

She says they initially disagreed.

“They’re like, ‘Oh no, I don’t think you do,’” Wimbrough recalled.

But she did.

This time, the situation became life-threatening.

Wimbrough was taken to the operating room and told that her uterus would most likely have to be removed.

Her response was immediate.

“Save my life, please.”

So they did.

Wimbrough woke up without her uterus or fallopian tubes.

But that wasn’t the end.

During the surgery, she says, her ureter was injured and the problem went undetected for approximately three days.

She couldn’t urinate normally.

She was in excruciating pain.

Eventually, she learned that urine was leaking into her abdomen rather than entering her bladder.

She required another procedure to repair the damage.

She also developed two blood clots in her arm.

At one point, she recalls being left alone in a dark hallway for more than an hour while desperately needing to urinate and crying for help.

“I was crying, and there were nurses and people passing,” she said. “No one cared.”

And while Wimbrough was hospitalized, her newborn daughter was discharged before she was.

Wimbrough was physically unable to care for her baby.

Her mother and grandmother had to take the baby home.

For a new mother, that would be heartbreaking under any circumstances.

For Wimbrough, it was another wound in an already battered life.

The pain didn’t end when the babies were born

Removing her uterus did not make Wimbrough’s pain disappear.

Instead, she entered another chapter of medical complications.

Six months after Juniper’s birth, the surgical closure at the top of her vagina tore open.

She began bleeding.

Doctors repaired it.

It tore again.

She required another procedure.

Then it happened again.

Wimbrough was told that her activity could be contributing to the problem.

But what was she supposed to do?

“I can’t afford to lay down and relax,” she said.

She had children.

Children who needed to be fed.

Children who needed to be dressed.

Children who needed diapers changed.

Children who needed rides.

Children who needed their mother.

Her body needed rest.

Her children needed her.

And there was no way to make those two realities fit neatly together.

Pain has become part of everyday life

Wimbrough has undergone numerous procedures in an effort to discover the source of her continuing pain, including a colonoscopy, gallbladder surgery and bladder testing.

She has been treated through pain management.

She has undergone injections.

She has been given fentanyl during procedures.

And she says she could still feel the needle.

“I was bawling,” she recalled.

She has taken oxycodone for nearly two years, prescribed by her primary-care physician so she can function.

“I normally need one in the morning and then maybe half at night,” she explained.

She isn’t describing recreational drug use.

She isn’t seeking a high.

She is trying to get through a day.

As she put it during the interview, she has her medication at home. When she goes to the emergency room, she isn’t looking for pain pills.

“I just want to make sure my ovary didn’t burst,” she said.

Her pain can become so severe that she cannot walk.

She falls.

She screams.

And yet, because she has been to the emergency room so many times, she says she has felt treated as though she is simply a “frequent flyer.”

As though she enjoys being there.

As though anyone would voluntarily spend hours in a hospital rather than cooking dinner, spending time with their children and living their life.

“I want to go to the hospital and miss time with my kids and cooking dinner?” she asked.

Of course she doesn’t.

She wants to be home.

She wants to be a mother.

Five children and a body that won’t cooperate

Wimbrough now has five children to care for.

One of them is five-year-old and autistic, moderately verbal and still not potty trained. Wimbrough described the challenges of communicating with her daughter, who cannot always tell her mother what she wants or needs.

Instead, Wimbrough has to hold things up, ask questions and try to determine what her daughter needs.

Her daughter receives speech and occupational therapy through school.

Wimbrough does everything she can to advocate for her.

And she does it while living with debilitating pain.

The physical demands of motherhood don’t disappear because a mother is sick.

Laundry still has to be done.

Meals still have to be prepared.

Children still need baths.

Diapers still need to be changed.

A child who is struggling still needs to be lifted and carried.

Wimbrough described bending over as feeling like she is being stabbed.

She cannot lie flat on her back without feeling as though she is being stabbed.

Twisting hurts.

Moving hurts.

And she currently has a cyst on her remaining ovary that measures approximately five centimeters.

She says her adhesions have returned and become extensive enough that movement itself can be difficult.

She needs another surgery.

And she is still trying to get someone to schedule it.

The financial reality

Wimbrough is unable to work.

She previously worked at Dollar General, but her health made maintaining employment impossible.

She says that during work, she worries about frightening the customers.

She has applied for disability.

Meanwhile, she is raising five children, with the help of her fiance, Jeremiah, when he is not working, on very limited resources.

Her family relies on child support and whatever income her fiancé can bring in.

Medical appointments can require long trips to Pittsburgh.

For a mother with five children–with a partner struggling to provide–simply getting to a specialist can become a logistical nightmare.

Finding someone to watch the children is difficult.

Paying for transportation is difficult.

Paying for everything else is difficult.

The system assumes that people have time, transportation, money and support.

Wimbrough often has none of those things in abundance.

And still, she keeps going.

“I just keep pushing through”

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Wimbrough’s story isn’t how many medical procedures she has undergone.

It isn’t the list of diagnoses.

It isn’t even the number of times she says she nearly died.

It is the fact that, after everything, she is still standing.

She was 26 years old when we spoke.

She has already endured pregnancies that repeatedly placed her life in danger.

She has survived domestic violence.

She has endured postpartum trauma.

She has lost her uterus.

She has experienced chronic pain that has become disabling.

She has been unable to work, but she is grateful to the ends of the earth that her partner can, and does, every day, for their family.

She has had to depend on others to care for her newborn while she was hospitalized.

And she is still raising five children.

There is no neat ending to this story.

No miracle cure.

No moment when a doctor finally says, “We figured it out.”

There is another surgery ahead.

There are more medical appointments.

There is more pain.

There are still unanswered questions.

But there is also something else.

There is Kayla.

Still fighting.

Still parenting.

Still advocating for herself.

Still telling doctors what her own body is telling her.

Still getting up.

Still making dinner.

Still changing diapers.

Still trying to figure out how to help her daughter communicate.

Still loving her children.

Still here.

“I just keep pushing through,” she said.

Sometimes, surviving doesn’t look heroic.

Sometimes it looks like a 26-year-old mother taking her prescribed pain medication in the morning so she can get out of bed.

Sometimes it looks like making it through another appointment, knowing that her partner is out there working, so that they can eat

Sometimes it looks like asking for help.

Sometimes it looks like handing your newborn to your mother because your own body has failed you one more time.

Sometimes it looks like crying in a hospital hallway while people walk past.

And sometimes it looks like getting back up anyway.

Kayla Wimbrough has been asked to endure more than anyone should have to endure.

She has been asked to be a patient, an advocate, a survivor, and a mother–all at once.

She has been failed in ways that deserve scrutiny.

But she has not failed her children.

She is still there.

And for a woman whose body has spent years fighting against her, the fact that she keeps fighting back may be the most extraordinary thing of all.

This story is based on an interview conducted by Monarch Media with Kayla Wimbrough. Medical terminology and details are presented as described by Wimbrough in the interview; Monarch Media has not independently adjudicated the allegations of medical negligence.