I spent 3 months to the day on bedrest
and I hoped and prayed as I read
through these stories that I would
have a good outcome. But, I read the
stories with good outcomes and the
ones with bad outcomes. I did this
mainly to gain information in hopes of
saving the life of my baby, but I
wasn't in a place at first to read the
stories with bad outcomes...that came
with time.
This was my first pregnancy. At 9
weeks I started bleeding. My ob, Dr
W, said that it was a threatened
miscarriage and told me what to look
for if I passed "the products of
conception." Instead of waiting for
that to happen, I put myself on strict
bed rest and bled until 14 weeks.
On October 17, 2009 at 16w 6days my
water broke. It was 2am and my
husband and I immediately went to
labor and delivery triage. We met
with a resident, Dr B-H, who did an
ulrasound, a nitrazine test and a
speculum exam. She immediately
diagnosed that my water had broken and
there was very little (less than 1cm)
of fluid left. She gave me my
options, induction or expectant
management. I had her explain the
induction process, but only to be
informed because I had no intention of
inducing labor. I told her I chose
expectant management and I could tell
that she felt sorry for me and the
situation but didn't have much hope
for the future of my pregnancy. Dr B-
H told us to meet with Dr W on Monday
morning to see what he had to say
about the situation.
My husband and I left the hospital in
tears. I knew what happened was bad,
but at the time, I had no idea what it
really meant for a pregnancy. I went
back on bed rest as soon as we got
home and started drinking as much
water as I could possibly drink. That
week, my baby flipped from the breech
position to being head-down. I also
got online and read, read, read about
pPROM and tried to find things I could
to to save my baby. Thankfully, I
found this website. I then created my
own blog, pprom.wordpress.org, to
document my pregnancy and provide
information to anyone who needed it.
On Monday Dr W had nothing solid for
me but did go along with my request
for antibiotics.
I feel really lucky that my husband
was there for me over those weeks upon
weeks of bed rest, because it was
scary and mentally draining for me. I
had plenty of time to research pPROM.
I started taking vitamins C (4-6
grams/day) & E (800iu/day) because I
read that it prolonged latency (the
time between when your water breaks
and when you go into labor). I took
several supplements by Standard
Process: Utrophin PMG, Collagen-C &
Pneumotrophin PMG, each 3x/day.
During the time I took Collagen-C I
retained fluid for several days at a
time each week. I also took Garden of
Life Primal Defense to try and further
ward off infection.
I saw Dr W every week and Dr A, the
high risk specialist, once a week
also. Both of them were kind, but
neither of them had any amount of hope
for my baby. The had me come in every
week to track my progress and monitor
for infection. Dr A felt very
strongly about me moving into the
hospital at 24 weeks. I was doing
well at home, and felt that
emotionally it would be better for me
to stay home and keep doing what I had
been doing. So, I convinced Dr A to
let me have my steroids and
antibiotics as an outpatient and told
him we'd talk about hospitalization
the following week.
I ended up holding out until 27 weeks
to move into the hospital. Things
went smoothly at the hospital for the
most part. At 28 weeks, I had some
bleeding and several hours of
contractions, but then they stopped, a
couple days later my doctors decided
to to the 2nd round of steroids.
Then, at the very beginning of my 30th
week I started bleeding again and
contracting seriously at 2am on
January 17, 2010. I labored in my
hospital room with my husband asleep
on the couch until 6am. By then my
contractions were 1-3 minutes apart,
so I had the nurse come in and hook me
up to the monitor. Within a couple
minutes, Dr B-H (who had followed me
from triage, to the high risk clinic
and was with me throughout my stay in
the antepartum unit) came in and said
I was in labor and she wanted to check
me. She did a manual exam (my 1st
since October) and I was 5cm and 100%
effaced. It was my baby's
birthday.
They wheeled me down the hall to labor
and delivery and put an i.v. in. They
put me in the delivery suite right
next to the operating room, just in
case I needed an emergency c-section.
At 7am I took fentanyl for pain. By
10ish, the pain was so intense that I
decided to get an epidural (which I
was totally against, going into
this.) The pain was probably
something I could have handled, but
with my nerves fried from worry about
my baby and a deep-down feeling that
the birth would need to be by c-
section, I was mentally ok with the
decision to have an epidural.
I had not had anything to eat since
the previous evening's dinner and
shortly after 12pm I started feeling
faint, like I was going to pass out.
My vitals stayed ok, but at 12:15 my
baby's heartrate dropped low. A whole
group of nurses came in while I was
feeling faint and put an oxygen mask
on me and wheeled me to the operating
room. Thankfully, I had a good
epidural, the medications kicked in
fast and my baby was born at
12:18pm.
He was a boy. 2lbs 8oz and 14.5"
long. We named him Clark. The NICU
team was able to stabilize him and
about 30 minutes after he was born
they brought him back into the
operating room for me to see him for
about a minute. He was beautiful..and
PINK. They wheeled him away to the
NICU and I went to recovery. As soon
as I was released to post partum they
took me, in my bed with wheels, to the
NICU.
Clark was doing well and was on the
oscillating ventilator. The next day,
I got out of bed and pushed a
wheelchair to the NICU. Clark had a
rough night because he extubated
himself. While re-intubating him, the
doctor nicked his airway and a week
later he came down with a deadly
pseudomonas infection from an infected
ventilator. They didn't think he
would make it through the night.
After hundreds and hundreds of prayers
for Clark's life, he made it through
and by February 3 was taken off the
ventilator and put onto CPAP for one
day. After that he went to the high
flow nasal cannula, which he was on
for weeks on various oxygen settings.
He had ups and downs, the
typical "nicu rollercoaster",
multiple bad days littered with
crashes and bagging. Some good days,
but overall the NICU was the biggest
physical and emotional drain of my
life and completely fried my nerves.
Eventually he was completely weaned
off of oxygen therapy.
He was diagnosed with a ventricular
septal defect (hole in the heart),
absent septum pellucidum, dislocated
left hip, leg & arm contractures and
had surgery for two very extensive
inguinal hernias. We are still
working with pediatric orthopedists on
his hip which will likely require
surgery.
After 75 days in the NICU, Clark was
able to come home on April 2, 2010 at
5lbs 2oz. Every minute on bed rest
and scary day in the NICU was
completely worth it. As scary as
pPROM is, you must be your baby's
advocate. It's very hard work and
there is never a guarantee that it
will work out, but if you ever need to
talk my email address is
brandy.l.kelley@gmail.com and please
feel free to email me.
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