I started having light bleeding in the
14th week of my first pregnancy and it
continued spontaneously. I lost a large
blood clot during this time and was told
to take bedrest, which I did. The
bleeding calmed down over the next month
and we though we were on track again, I
began feeling kicks and had no bleeding
for a whole fortnight. Things changed
when I lost all of my amniotic fluid on
the 3rd June 2005 (17+3wk) in three big
gushes starting at 7.30am. I was 27
years old. Young, healthy,
non-smoker.
My husband and I went to the hospital to
see my OB. She said I had PPROM'd and
prescribed the usual 48 hours in
hospital, during which time we were told
we would lose our baby (50% chance) and
if this didn't happen we should think
about inducing, so as not to postpone
the inevitable. We were told that if we
had the baby there would be many things
wrong with it. We were very scared. My
husband and I decided there and then
that if there was something wrong with
our baby, my body would reject it and
apart from that we left it in God's
hands. I was allowed to go home on oral
antibiotics for a week in which time
(90% chance) I would most likely lose
our precious little baby. I was told to
take bedrest, but this time we though we
would not postpone the inevitable and
made the most of our time together and
went and enjoyed ourselves and our bump
and wanted to remember it as a positive
time after spending much of the
pregnancy stressed and worried about
what the heck was going on in there.
During that week, I found this site.
Which I will always be grateful for.
After the week was up we went to see the
OB. She was shocked that nothing had
happened yet and even more horrified to
realise I hadn't taken bedrest. I had a
small loss of fluid that morning (the
only loss all week), but she was
surprised on the U/S to see our little
bub still moving around quite freely in
such a small amount of fluid.
I was closely monitored over the next
few weeks, every minute expecting to
lose the little life inside me. We were
finally admitted, when I was 24 weeks
pregnant, to Royal Brisbane Womens
Hospital, which has a NICU, 90 minutes
from home. It was so wonderful to
finally make it to the viable stage,
when finally there was hope of saving
our baby when he decided to come. I
spent one week in hospital under
observation, and when the were happy
that I was stable I was released as an
out patient to Ronald McDonald House,
right next door to the hospital. The
days crawled by. I had weekly
appointments with OB's and midwives,
swabs, blood tests, U/S's, CTG's, urine
tests, the works.
My husband and I had a tour of the NICU
and got a feel of what to expect. I also
met with one of the specialist
pediatricians and we talked about what
could go wrong. It was a very daunting
and scary time.
I was booked in for an elective C/S at
34 weeks but at 30+5 weeks I started
having contractions at 3.15am and was
admitted to hospital at 10.30am, but the
midwives were hoping the contractions
would stop. They got closer together
(but never painful), so I rang my
husband to come and be with me. He
arrived at 2.30pm and when my doctor
finally got to see me at 6pm, I was 7cm
dilated and contractions 3 minutes
apart. She broke the remaining waters
and everything went too quickly after
that, so I was put under G/A for an
emergency C/S. During the birth of our
baby, the doctors discovered that I have
a bicornuate uterus.
I woke up at 2am the next morning, with
a flat tummy, not knowing what had
happened. I rang my husband and found
out we had a little boy boy in the NICU
and he was fine. He was born on 3rd
September 2005, 7.39pm, weighing
1670gms. I was awake all morning waiting
for the moment to meet him.
Our baby, Angus, was in an incubator,
has monitors hooked up all over him,
tubes going in and coming out, but in
reality was a healthy little baby, just
premature.
It was amazing. The next two weeks flew
and crawled along all at the same time.
We watched with our hearts in our
throats as the tubes were removed one by
one and we were moved from the NICU to
Special Care and then Angus was
transferred by helicopter to the Special
Care Unit at our nearest hospital, 20
minutes away. All the time he progressed
well. It was so good to be finally home
after 9 weeks away in hospital and a
total of 13 weeks on bedrest, even
though Angus was still in hospital.
On the 28th October 2005, after 48 days
in hospital, Angus finally came home. A
sleep study confirmed that he has
chronic lung disease and needs to be on
home oxygen for 3 months, with another
sleep study after that time to determine
if he will need it for any longer.
Amazingly other than that he is perfect.
I honestly never knew if he would make
it. He is my little miracle boy. He is
now 10 weeks old and is 41 weeks
gestationally. He has doubled his birth
weight and I cannot stop looking at him
and smiling and thanking God that I put
my faith in Him and not the doctors who
told me he wouldn't make it.
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