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My husband and I were so excited to be
pregnant with our first baby! It was a
normal day. I hadn't done much all day
and was looking forward to a nice dinner
with my family. I had just sat down
when I felt a gush of fluid. I had had
bleeding from week 7 of my pregnancy, so
a little moisture wasn't all that
strange. . .or so I thought. When it
kept on coming, though, I knew that
something wasn't right. The Labor and
Delivery Doctor did an exam and found
there to be no signs of labor. Our baby
was doing fine and so he admitted me to
the hospital, and prepared us for the
worst - letting us know that we probably
wouldn't be there for long before the
baby would come. I was given
antibiotics for a week. . .and told to
hang on for awhile -we'd be there until
the baby was born. We were warned, of
course, of all of the possible problems
and complications due to the little or
no fluid that there was around the baby,
but our doctors were wonderful and kept
reminding us that hope was all we had!
So I stayed there. My AFI's fluctuated
between 0 and 1 cm the whole time. I
kept leaking the whole time, too. But
despite all of that, our son, Samuel
Hunter, stayed put for nearly twelve
weeks. Over that time, he grew normally,
had the hiccups much of the time, and
was developing perfectly. The doctors
were even able to see lung tissue and a
proportional chest on the ultrasound
done at 27+4weeks. At 29+1weeks I
started having painful contractions.
They determined later that infection had
finally set in and my body knew that it
was time for Samuel to be born. Because
baby was breech they decided to do a
c-section. At 12:01pm our baby was
born. He was absolutely beautiful!
Perfectly formed in everyway. Both of
his APGAR scores at birth were a 7!! And
the doctor performing the c-section was
very optimistic about his survival. Two
hours later, however, the neonatologist
came back to tell us that our son would
not be with us for long. His lungs had
failed to develop due to the low level
of amniotic fluid. While he had lungs,
they only took up about 1/4 of the space
that they needed to and they had no
elasticity. At 5:15pm, our little
Samuel passed from our arms into the
arms that awaited him in heaven. Even
in our loss, though, we are certain that
we would not have traded any of those
twelve weeks in bed if it would have
meant less time with our beloved son.
Miracles do happen. His five hour life,
though not the miracle we wanted, was a
miracle in itself and we are thankful
for each second he was with us.
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