I was both shocked and excited when my
wife told me we had a baby on the way
only 5 weeks after our wedding.
This was my first baby and my wife's
second, she has a 12 year old daughter
Jessica who was born by emergency
ceasarian at a healthy 7 pounds.
Everything was going along fine with
the pregnancy in the early stages and
then one day I found my wife crying
because she was spotting blood.
We rushed off to our obstetrician who
performed a scan which confirmed all
was well with the baby, and recommended
that she take it easy and get plenty of
bed rest.
Later that day however she experienced
a rush of fluid which she took to be
some kind of involuntary bladder
problem.
A week later after a second scan I came
home to find my poor wife again crying
and she told me that the scan had
revealed that all her fluid was gone.
At this stage we were only 14 weeks
into the pregnancy and it seemed that
the general opinion was that she was
going to lose the baby, even though it
seemed the baby was in good health and
with a strong heartbeat.
After a particular bout of leaking and
loss of blood my wife was admitted to
hospital and given intravenous
antibiotics. A few days later the
leaking stopped, she was released to go
home and we allowed ourselves the
luxury of thinking that maybe all was
OK and the rupture had healed
itself.
However his was just the first of a
cycle of leaking and not leaking that
continued for the next 11 weeks.
We endured scan after scan, as well as
being advised many times that the
prognosis for a baby affected by PPROM
at such an early stage (14weeks) was
poor.
Despite the sometimes days on end
without leaking, every scan we had
showed little to no fluid around our
poor little fellow.
Most of the doctors we saw however did
seem to think as we did, that if this
baby was prepared to fight as it was
doing, then it seemed the right thing
to do everything we could to help him
in that fight.
The baby made excellent progress
despite his lack of fluid, however
after about 8 weeks he did show signs
of being slightly smaller than he
should as well as very
slight "contractures" in his
limbs.
My wife was admitted to hospital by our
obstetrician as soon as she reached the
magical 24 week stage, she was given
steroid injections and antibiotics to
help protect and develop the babies
lungs. Our obstetrician had
her "pencilled in" for a cesarian
delivery in her 30th week.
This was not to be however as on 5
September (Father's Day) her
contractions started.
Our obstetrician had already
anticipated this from an earlier scan
and he opted to deliver the baby right
away, since the baby was showing signs
of stress.
Little Leo was born at 9:49pm on 5
September, he made a little cry as he
came out and this gave us great hope
for his little lungs. The doctors
(there were five of them!) immediately
put him on a respirator and squirted a
suffactant into his lungs to aid his
breathing.
He was 26 and a half weeks and weighing
627grams, and quite long for his size
at 31 centimetres.
We were so overjoyed when they told us
that he was doing fine, we spent ages
just looking at him in his little
humidicrib, he would always be moving
his little arms and legs and opening
his little blue eyes. Even the doctors
seemed cautiously optimistic, and for a
while everything certainly looked
good.
After 3 days however his blood pressure
started to drop, his colour wasn't
great and the doctor told us that they
suspected he could have "necrotising
entrocolitis", a rather serious
complication that preemies can get.
Leo's condition rapidly deteriorated
from there, it was heartbreaking to
watch our little fighter losing his
fight, they told us that despite using
three different drugs to try and raise
his blood pressure as well as a small
procedure to release gas from his
tummy, they were fighting a losing
battle and already he was in a state
from which he could not recover.
Sadly the decision was made to remove
him from the machines, the nurses and
staff allowed us time to hold him, tell
him how proud we are and how much we
love him and say goodbye.
We will never forget our first little
son, we love him so much and we can't
help but think he was here for us to
teach us something about life.
Not only did Leo bring me my first
Father's day but he was also
coincidently born on the anniversary of
his namesake and great grandfather
Leo.
He was born on 5 September 2004, and
sadly passed away on 10 September
2004.
We may never know what caused the
PPROM, our obstetrician told us that
the pathology on the placenta revealed
that quite amazingly there was
absolutely no trace or history of
infection.
He does suspect however that the
initial bleeding may have contributed
to the rupture.
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