My story is a very strange story, I'm
sure as is everyone's. My membranes
ruptured at 32 weeks on May 15 1997. My
EDD was July 5 1997. My husband and I
were watching the season Finale of ER.
It is pretty ironic because on ER that
evening, Peter Benton's girlfriend
delivered her baby at 32 weeks. The baby
had all these health problems. My
husband I thought how awful. An hour
after watching this show my water broke.
I thought this can't be happening,
it's too early. We were totally
shocked. At first I was kind of
confused. Earlier in the day I had
noticed some backache and a little
cramping. My midwife said that this was
probably just the normal pains of
pregnancy. She of course was going out
of town that weekend to visit her
family. I paged the midwife on call. The
fluid just continued to gush out of me.
She said to get right over to the
hospital. We couldn't go to the
hospital where my midwife has priveleges
because of the prematurity of the baby.
At the hospital, the doctor examined me,
which wasn't fun, because everything
has to be so sterile. They did an
ultrasound and it showed that the fluid
level was very low. I stayed in the
hospital that evening. They told me I
would go into labour within the next 24
hours.
This was all so overwhelming. Well
nothing happened that evening or the
next day, so I begged my midwife to let
me go home. I had no sign of infection
and no signs of imminent labour. I
stayed at home on very strict bed rest
for 5 weeks. I never went into labour on
my own, I had to be induced at 37 weeks.
They didn't want to risk infection, and
begged and pleaded not to be induced but
I also had to do what was best for the
baby. My labour was only 4 hours. She
was born on June 18 1997. My daughter
was born breathing on her own, healthy.
The only problem that was observed was a
poor suck and refusal of the breast. She
also developed jaundice the next day,
although that was due to ABO
incompatability. We spent about a week
in the hospital with her and then we
were all able to go home. She is now 16
months old and doing just fine. We
haven't noticed any major health
problems with her. She actually has been
very healthy, never had a cold yet.
I wasn't able to continue the
breastfeeding because of several
factors, mainly the poor sucking reflex.
I nursed her for about 4 weeks. We are
very thankful that everything turned out
all right with our daughter. It was a
very scary time in our lives. The
doctors kept telling me that everything
would be all right and that I would be
going into labour within a few days,
well that never happened. I had an
ultrasound done once a week until she
was born to determine how she was coping
and to check the level of fluid. I'm
now expecting my second child and am
worried to death about this happening
again. They never could uncover what
happened to make my membranes rupture.
Diagnosis: Unknown cause.
Thanks for letting me tell my story.
This is a great web site!
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