By Didem, Dallas, TX US
PROM at 21 weeks + 5 days. Delivery at 32 weeks + 3 days.
Story added: 2011-07-16

My pregnancy related troubles began when I was just 13 weeks pregnant with my little girl last year in July. I was briefly admitted to the hospital and put on a bed rest because of inflamed fibroid and funneled cervix. After 5 days of bed rest, since cervix started to look better I was sent home for a continuous bed rest with weekly checkups. Unfortunately at home the cervix started to funnel up again, at our 17 weeks we had an emergency cerclage put on, and my days in hospital started again, but this time for a longer period. The first couple of weeks were ok; I was at least allowed to shower every other day and had bathroom privileges. Then all of a sudden I had a big bleeding at week 20 and then at week 21 and day 5, I PPROMMED. The fluid level was dropped to 7cm at our 22 week ultrasound, to 4.5 cm at 23 week, and stayed around 1.5cm after week 24. With the PPROM, all my privileges were taken away, I was doing my business using bed pan, and having my body and hair washed on the bed, and ordered not to get up at all. They have given me the antibiotics right after the PPROM at 21 week 5 days, and steroid shots at 23 week 5 days. I was getting weekly ultrasound with my high risk peri, and daily visits with my regular OBGYN. As soon as I hit 24 week, twice a day, they started to check baby’s heart rate and my contractions. Few times we had uterine irritations as the nurses called, but mostly the baby’s heart rate looked good and I did not have any big concerning contractions. I started to bleed almost daily starting week 27 (I think), after that, the fluid started to come out sometimes as pink, sometimes as maroon red, and sometimes as bright red. The doctors checked several times and could not find any blood clot inside the uterus, and confirmed that the placenta was attached firmly. So after few bleeding episodes, they considered the bleeding my normal and stopped worrying about it. Then the week 32 came, and the baby’s heart rate started to have more decels. On Friday 19th morning, we had 2 decels, they were not horribly bad but this was something new since till then she was mostly good. I also learnt that my doctor was going to be gone for 5 days because of Thanksgiving holiday the coming week. This worried me a lot, none of the other doctors would have known much about my case even though I have seen some of the doctors when they are on call during weekend doctor visits. So with the blessings of my two doctors, we decided to have the C-section the same day on 19th of November 2010, 11 days before the planned C-section at 34 weeks. We did not want to be the ones who decide when the baby should come but at the same time, we did not want to push it too hard since 32 week gestation was great considering our odds. Well we were extremely lucky; Helena Sanem Cieslik was born on Friday 19th of November at 3:09pm crying. She weighed 3lbs 14oz and was 16 inches long. Her Apgar scores were 8/8, and just few moments after she was born, the doctors declared that she is able to breathe on her own and needs no oxygen. They even took her off the oxygen monitoring few hours later since she was doing fabulous. She just had to learn to eat from a bottle while gaining weight, maintain her body temperature, and be apnea free for at least 5 days. And she did all these in just 20 days and came home where she belongs. I have to admit, it was tough, there was not a day I did not cry, I felt like my doctor was thinking more about the baby than me, I was so mad at him. Now I know that we would not be at this point if I did not have him as my doctor. I was lucky to have a wonderful support from family and friends as well. I would not be able to survive without my wonderful Husband and my mom. I feel extremely lucky, and I am so grateful and thankful to have a happy healthy baby, and I wish you all PPROM queens the same.