"Well, me and my husband really wanted to have a baby so we were trying for a while and I couldn't get pregnant..."

Then one day I found out I was pregnant after trying for quite a few months. We were so happy. Me and my husband got into little disagreements on what we wanted, if we wanted a boy or girl. He wanted the boy and I wanted a girl. I got what I wanted...at 3 months I found out that I was having a little girl. Our happiness to me being pregnant and the excitedment of me having a little girl had changed when I was 6 months pregnant, I had to go for a level 2 ultrasound. My husband has an aortic stynosis valve, we had to make sure it wasn't hereditary so I had to go for the level 2. When I went, they found fluid on the brain and referred me to a neurologist to have a fetal MRI done. They found a mass on the brain. They thought it had to do with the fatal chromosome. They also found the findings of an enlarged heart/thick muscle, and the microcephaly.

As I continued going to the ultrasound appointments they found the mass, the fluid, a low amniotic fluid, micocephaly, and the enlarged heart/thick muscle. I was 38 weeks pregnant and I went into labor. After 18 hours of labor I gave birth to Starlitt weighing in at 5 lbs 9 oz on January 30th, 2010. When we went to go to see her in the NICU the following day, they told us that her liver/spleen was enlarged, she had extensive brain damage, failed her hearing test, platelet count was low, and they didn't know if she was going to make it. I started to cry. They didn't know what it was.

Three days after this, our prayers were answered when they told us what was wrong with her. They told us it was CMV and that I contracted it when I was pregnant. They asked me if I had felt sick at all while I was pregnant and I said no, that I felt that I had an easy going pregnancy (up until 6 months when they found fluid and mass on the brain which was upsetting). She needed many platelet transfusions a day, to see many doctors, and she was in the hospital for 6 1/2 weeks. Now she is home, but I have difficulty when it comes to night time because she is either up all night crying or playing (which may be due to insomnia which CMV can cause) and I have difficulty feeding her.

She has a few doctors she has to visit regularly such as the GI doctor, Infectious Disease Specialists, the eye doctor, her pediatrician, then I have a visiting nurse who comes and visits her one time a week as well as birth to 3 where a PT and OT comes out two times a month.

As of right now, she hasn't had any surgeries but when she was in the hospital for the first 2 weeks when she needed many platelet and blood transfusions, an MRI where they had to put her under, and the trial of ganciclovir. For medications, she's only on Actigall and Adeks for both her liver and spleen, and she's also on Zantac for acid reflux.

Her diagnosis as it stands is congenital CMV along with the following...microcephaly, cmv hepitits, cmv retinitis, enlarged spleen, enlarged and still sick liver, calcium deposits, fluid on the brain, brain damage from what the doctors told me, and severely hearing impaired.

Well, so far, that is my story. I am trying to help raise awareness for CMV because it's a very common virus yet only a few know about it and people who do not know have the right to know about CMV so they can prevent from their baby having cCMV.

- Submitted by her mother, Tina