Hi everyone, not going to make this post super long but wanted to share my story very briefly in case anyone is going through the same (i.e. already has a positive result). FEEL free to reach out. I caught toxoplasmosis while pregnant and wasn't able to find anyone on the internet to help or enough cases that looked like mine so here I go - we survived.
background: no cats in the house and I am vegan so def no raw meat consumed - i can only think this was a badly washed salad as i got a bad stomach the day after one specific meal and a week later the results.
If you are in the UK and not going private, unfortunately you are not tested which i find incredibly disappointing - i truly believe i wasn't unluckly but there must be plenty of undiagnosed cases (simply because all is fine with baby).
so my doctors tested me at the start of pregnancy so around 10 weeks, 28 weeks and then at 36 weeks, full bloods including CMV, Toxo, etc. I was lucky enough to know from the start that I was not immune at the start of my pregnancy and that i did not catch it up to week 28 (imagine the worry if at week 36 you find out and the have to figure out when you caught it). so to start with, i knew all was going to be ok. i just had a feeling. I took spiramycin for the last weeks of my prengancy, lots of tests sent to the swansea lab, all came back positive. Lets just say i made the most of my last 4 weeks of prengnacy which i did not think would end up like they did!
anyway she was born. the process from day one to about month three was the worse. she was infected, we did MRIs, LPs, eye tests, and every test under the sun - she was perfect but infected.
she is coming to one year now and its the most amazing girl ever. don't want to go through the treatment part because its long and painful but we only decided to do treatment to be on the safe side (this means antibiotics, and monthly bloods which sometimes turn weekly). its been SO fun....
long story short, I caught toxo around week 34/35, results around week 36 (these showed acute infection but no antibodies as so recent). if it wasn't because my doctor did routine toxo tests, my first year as a mother would have been SO, SO different but hey!
she is wonderful - smart, pretty, kind.
PS: i met other congenital toxo babies who are now on their 40s. some of them had scars in the eyes but better vision than me!
we and my girl have gone through a lot this past year but if anything... i wanted to put your mind at ease. catching toxo is incredibly rare. passing it to the baby is not the rule either. It just happened that in my case it all did and hey, we are thriving! x