By Alicia, Flagler Beach, Florida USA
PROM at 29 weeks + 5 days. Delivery at 35 weeks + 3 days.
Story added: 2011-09-30

Well guys, here we go again, yet another crazy birth story from our family to yours! Okay, where to begin...LO EDD is august 22nd....Friday, June 17th, I wake up at around 1 am feeling like I had to pee so I go to get out of bed and it feels like I wet myself a little. I’m like "nice" so I go to the BR, clean up and go back to bed. later I wake up again to roll over and I feel like I wet myself again, so I’m like "what is going on", I didn't feel like I really had to pee that bad but I get up, go , clean up, put on a pad this time and go back to bed. I had been having slight bladder control issues over the past couple of weeks, but didn't think it had been that bad. So I wake up again around 3:15 am and don't have to pee at all, but when I roll over again, I feel like I am peeing myself. Okay this isn't good, I go to the bathroom again and then wake up my DH to tell him that I thought I was leaking fluid and that I needed to call the midwife. At this point the small "light day" pad I had put on wasn't working, so I grab one of Jaxons night time diapers and use it. I call my midwife, Karen, at quarter to 4am and she confirmed that it did sound like I may be leaking fluid and to get to L&D ASAP. So I wake up my DH, who thought he had been dreaming the first time I tried to wake him, and told him that we needed to get to the hospital, but not to get all freaked out because I thought I had read before that even if your water is leaking it could be okay and your bag can reseal, so maybe it wasn't that serious. So we get everything together, get Jaxon in the car and head out to the hospital at around 5:30am. We get into the triage and I’m tested for fluid leak and it is positive, so I say to the nurse, "but it’s okay, right? I mean, my bag could re­seal and everything could be fine?" "nope," she says "we are admitting you and most likely you will either start to go into labor or you will get an infection and we will have to deliver you by the end of the weekend or Monday." i was immediately admitted to the hospital and put on bed rest. Wow, what a lot to swallow when your baby isn't due for over 10 more weeks and we were planning a home birth, which was now totally out. Now we were faced with a pre-mature "wimpy white boy", as all the doctors and nurses so aptly stigmatize preemie white boys as, a long stay for baby in the NICU, and for me; "infection will set in and you will either be induced or your body may start labor on its own" from every doctor and nurse I spoke to. Nice! so I get hooked up with a nice room (yeah right), IV'd with anti-biotics and steroid shots to mature babies lungs, hooked up to the monitors to check babies heart rate and see if there were any contractions going on, then shipped down to US to see what my fluid levels were. Well fluid levels were still fine at 15, as I had only been leaking for about 6 hours, so I get back to my room and get the run down of the "plan". I would get 2 steroid shots, 3 rounds of IV anti-biotics, blood test every other day (assuming I would be there that long) to monitor for infection along with blood pressure and temp check every 4 hours. okay so by now my head is completely spinning, I hate needles and IV's, didn't want any medical intervention or medications, have an almost 2YO at home to take care of that has never been watched by anyone but me or DH and DH is supposed to be working. Okay, so things are looking pretty bad from where I was sitting at that point so I call Karen to let her know what is going on. Luckily they hooked me up with Karen’s "go to" OB doctor that all her "high risk" patients are transferred to, who just happened to be on that day. And I ask Karen, "I thought that even though you are leaking, there is still a chance for ­sealing and continuing on naturally. Am I wrong about this? They are all telling me that this is 100% not possible and that we are going to see this baby by the end of the weekend!" She said that she has actually had ladies that were leaking fluid and they DID re­seal and continue on to have their homebirths, not many, but she has seen it happen. Finally! a ray of hope through all the negative Nellie’s I was dealing with all day! So that was it, I had a plan and I was sticking to it! "I told every doctor, nurse and janitor that came in there, that I was going to­ reseal, not get infected, and go home and have my homebirth! I called Jason and told him to bring me a supply of depends, that we were riding this thing out, come hell or high water, like we always do! Okay, so don't get me wrong, I was scared as hell, upset, and looking for answers and all the information I could get at this point. I come on here and post and got a lot of prayers and support, thank you to all who posted, the T&P worked. so to make a very long hospital story shorter (still not very short), poor Jason didn't get the extravagant fathers day celebration I had been planning, we ended up having to have Jaxons 2 year birthday party at the hospital, I got to watch fireworks alone and from a distance from my "cell" on the 4th of July and I was creeping up on having to celebrate my own birthday in the hospital. I endured 5 weeks of the same yucky hospital food, day after day, what seemed like pints worth of blood draws; after the 1st week we switched to every day draws after declining the "new standard" of anti-biotic treatments of 48 hours worth of IV AB's followed by 5 days of pill form. this was due to not wanting to build a resistance to the AB's should I still need them again and was discussed at length with the doc, who ended up being great and on board with me wanting to just wait to go into labor on my own and having limited or no interventions unless completely necessary. Once I reached 34 weeks the perinatologists started wanting to induce me, well they had another thing coming. During this time I was having a lot of back pains from being stuck in bed and at one point, I think I may have developed and passed a kidney stone. Let me tell you the pain I went through with that was worse than any labor pains I had with Jaxon or would come to have with this lil'guy. so, after making it this far without getting infected, my fluid levels dropping to zero; then rising back up into the average zone for our babies GA, and there still not being any signs of fetal distress or contractions they finally gave me a "hall pass", meaning I could walk the L&D floor, but couldn't leave the area, so about 2 city blocks worth of walking. Yeay, I could leave my room with out a wheelchair and a nurse. So I walked and still nothing happened, there were a few nights when I would have contractions, but they were usually caused by gas and would taper off. So after a few days of walking the doc comes and asks if I would like a "day pass"? Hell yeah I would! I could finally spend 1 day with Jason and Jaxon and go outside after not feeling the sun or driving a car for a whole month! So on Sunday July 17th, exactly one month after being admitted, I got my day. Man, I was off to the flea market to get a corn dog, 2 actually, so I could split it with Jaxon. Then we went to the mall where they have a train that goes around the whole inside, we rode it like 3 or 4 times, Jaxon loves Thomas engine and kept announcing to all the mall goers that he was "riding Thomas", "toot, toot!" and "we are puffing down the tracks, mommy, daddy!" it was so great to finally get a day. We then headed home so I could be there for just a couple hours before I had to head back to my "cell". That was one of the hardest parts of my entire stay, having to tell Jaxon that I couldn’t stay with him and daddy and that I had to go back to the hospital. I thought that maybe my doc thought that if she let me leave and come back that I would finally give into the induction, and I won't lie, I did think about it after getting a taste of freedom, but there was no medical necessity for it and besides I was the best incubator for our baby, so I stayed strong and firm with our decision to keep going. the next day, Monday, i felt pretty good and one of the other doctors, Stavoy, from the practice came in to see how everything was going, i thanked him for the "hall pass", as he was the one who finally gave it the go ahead, and he asked again what the "plan" was, which was to keep going; no induction but won't stop labor if it starts. And then he said something that I never expected to hear, especially from him, "well," he says "what would you say to just getting out of here all together?" "What?!?" I say; "that would be the greatest thing ever, this Sunday is my birthday, that would be the best gift, if i could finally go home." and I immediately started crying, just thinking about actually being able to leave. "I will have to discuss it with the others, but I will talk to them later and see what they say" he said, meaning the rest of the docs in the practice and Dr Carbiener, my head doc. so all day I can't think about anything else, but am still trying to not get my hopes up, and I held off on telling Jason because I wanted it to be a surprise if they did let me go and I didn't want him to get his hopes up and then it not happen either. Later that day I saw doc Stavoy again while walking the halls and asked him if he found out anything yet, but he had forgotten and said that he would talk to Carbiener after he got out from doing a c-sect. well, later that evening I started having bad back pains again and my fluid, that had previously only been clear or slightly tinged pink changed to almost blood red and I started having contractions that were about10 minutes apart. They said the change in color was nothing to worry about, that it was probably just due to a change in my cervix, so they checked me but I was not dilated. I did end up taking a pain pill so I could get some rest in case the "big day" was coming, but by the morning the contractions and back pain had gone away and by the afternoon my leakage went back to clear. I figured though, that the deal to be sent home was probably out of the question after the night I had had, so I didn't even mention it to the morning doc that came in, but by afternoon I was back to normal and curious about if it still might be possible. So I waited till Wednesday and asked the nurses if I could get Carbieners phone number so I could talk to her about what Stavoy had mentioned. When she called me back I told her about everything that had happened on Monday night, but that I felt fine come Tues afternoon and leakage was back to clear, no contractions or back pain and asked if Stavoy had talked to her about sending me home. She said he hadn't mentioned it and that she would have to think about it and call me back. about a half an hour later she called again and said that she had to tell me that if it was any other circumstances, she would be telling me no, but in her entire 25 years of practicing medicine, she had never seen anyone last as long as I had in pProm and them not get infected and at this point she felt bad about even keeping me in and away from my family. my fluid levels; though I was still leaking, continued to rise and stay within acceptable levels for the past 2 weeks, there was still no sign of infection, no fetal distress on any of the monitoring the whole time I had been in there, no fever, and at this point if she had thought that there would be any problems with me or baby it would be out of the question. but, she said that she didn't think there would be any issues at this point, so she would be in the next day and I would need to sign a waiver acknowledging the risks that could be associated with my being discharged. I told her that I could keep doing what they were doing here, checking my temp every 4 hours, do fetal monitoring with a Doppler, and come in 2 times a week for US's. She said okay and that she would see me in the morning. I was over the moon, I immediately called Jason to let him know this would be my last night away from him and Jaxon! everything went fine that night and the next day while I slowly told all my nurses I was getting out, they were all very happy that I was getting to go home and also assured me that I could keep track of everything on my own. by mid-afternoon Dr Carbeiner hadn't been in yet but she sent in the form I needed to sign, so I could read it over and get any questions together. she finally came in around 2pm and said that she was okay with releasing me, that she again thought everything would be fine with baby even if he was born that night and that at this point, because he had the steroids 5 weeks prior, his lungs were probably fully developed and he most likely wouldn't have any stay in the NICU and possibly not even have to be in the regular nursery. Also, because he had been under the stress of low fluid for so long, he would have been working harder every time he moved, so his muscles would be more developed than a normal 35 weeker. She said basically what I was already thinking, about monitoring my own temp and I asked her about if there was a fetal Doppler I could get so I could still do the nightly/morning heart monitoring. We felt a lot more comfortable doing this if I could still monitor him. She didn’t have one but it turned out later that Karen had an extra that she said I could borrow. So I signed the waiver and called Jason to come and get me. I packed up all my stuff, which let me tell you was a lot after being there for 5 weeks and waited for my chariot out of there to arrive! When Jason got there Jaxon was asleep in the car so I was brought down then Jason went back for my cart of stuff. Jaxon woke up very excited to see mommy in the car and we all went over to firehouse subs to celebrate my release and get Jaxon a fireman’s hat. After we ate I felt like I might have been cramping a little, but they were sporadic and not bad, so we went on over to Karen’s to get the Doppler and I told her I was cramping a bit. She said just go home and get some rest, which is what I did. Jason had made a pork butt the night before so we had some yummy pulled pork sammies and I got the royal treatment while I rested on the couch. I was still having some contractions here and there throughout the evening but nothing bad, I just kept hoping I would at least get my 1 night at home and get to sleep in my own bed before anything happened and I would have to go back to that hospital. Well, we all snuggled on the couch till Jaxon fell asleep and around midnight I started feeling like I was having gas pains. I figured it was from eating the BBQ sandwiches for dinner so we went on to bed. I kept waking up through the night feeling like I needed to go to the bathroom and like I was having gas pains and light contractions. I was a little worried, but when I was in the hospital gas would cause contrax but then they would go away and I didn’t want to go through all the getting MIL over here in the middle of the night and it be a false alarm, so I kept getting up and trying to use the BR. Finally at around 3am I was able to go, so I thought; good, now these contrax will go away. But instead of going away, I noticed they got worse and seemed like they were coming pretty regularly so after timing them and them going from 20 to 15 min apart, I woke Jason up and we started timing them together. They were at around 10 minutes apart but weren’t that bad and i could feel baby moving after each one. I figured I better call the on call doc and the hospital to let them know what was going on. Naturally he wanted me to come in, so I told him that we needed to get MIL here to watch Jax and that we would be at the hospital in about an hour and a half. As soon as we got off the phone, Jason called his mom and let her know what was going on and asked her to come over. Cotrax were at around 5 mins apart when he called her and when he hung up they went to 2 mins apart. He quickly got a bag together as I told him what bags to pull things out of for the re-­pack and once I was mostly ready; I went into Jax’s room and laid down with him until MIL got there. I felt horrible that I told Jax I would see him in the morning and then now he was gonna wake up and I wouldn’t be there, after all the weeks we had already spent apart. Finally Jason’s mom got there so I got back out to the living room and I knew that we really had to get going. The contrax were not feeling very nice and they were still pretty close together, Jason tried to help me get my socks on but I told him we needed to get, so he ran the bag out to the car while I finished getting my shoes on. Jason comes back in and I stand up to leave and all of a sudden I feel the baby drop into my birth canal. Jason says I went as white as a ghost and I look at him and say “oh, no, you better call 911, he is coming now.†I sit back down quickly as Jason’s jaw drops and he says, “are you sure, everything is ready, I can get you to the car, we can go right now†but just then I have another contraction and I feel him being pushed further down. And all of a sudden everything happens in a whirl wind; Jaxon wakes up and comes screaming crying out of his room, Flo hurries over to try and calm him down. I tell Jason “ no, you gotta call 911 and get me to the bed, now!†he grabs the phone from his pocket and dials, grabs me under the arms and helps me into our room as I’m calling to Jaxon that everything is ok and its all alright. I grab a wet mat out of one of my hospital bags on the way to the bed and tell Jason to lay it out. He does it, tells the operator I’m having the baby and to get here and helps me into bed. Everything is happening so fast at this point, the operator is asking if he can see the head, but he can’t, I have another contrax, I need more pillows, the operator asks again and now the head is there! Jason says, “I see his head, I gotta go!†and just as he is hanging up she tells him the meds are pulling up out front, he hangs up and yells for ma to let them in. I feel his head, Jason reaches down to catch him and tells me he has a full head of hair and to feel, but I can’t, all I can do is push. Just then his head comes out, the paramedics come rushing in, the cord is around his neck, so the medics take over, unloops the cord and I push out his little body. on Friday July 22nd at 5:56am our lil'man was born, wieghing 4lb's 14oz and 13" long. They wrap him in the world’s largest paper towel and hand him to me. Then one of them pulls out a pamphlet and quickly starts reading it (apparently it had been so long since they had delivered a baby, they needed a refresher) as another tries to clamp the cord. Jason stops him, “wait till its done pulsing†he says, so they do then they clamp and cut it. All I keep thinking is that this wasn’t supposed to be happening and that we need to get to the hospital immediately. Thankfully though, baby looked great, cried very well, and was moving great. He was the most beautiful and so tiny. All the while Jaxon is still very upset, screaming for the men to get out and leave his mommy alone. Jason scoops him up and brings him in, but he is too upset to realize what has happened, so while the medics are calling everything in and getting things ready for us to go Jason takes Jaxon out to look a the fire truck and calm him down. He comes back in and then Jaxon slowly realizes that the baby is no longer in mommies belly, Jason takes a couple picts and the medics load me and baby onto the gurney. On the way back to the hospital baby and I get oxygen and the medic keeps checking my blood pressure. Baby is looking great and keeps looking all around. When we get back to the hospital they take me back to L&D, my home from the past 5 weeks and on the way in I see one of my nurses, “ we all took bets on who this would be, I knew it was going to be you!†she said and smiled. I smiled at her too; by this point I knew everything was going to be fine with our new lil’man. We got to our new room and baby was put under the heat lamps and checked out, vitamin k’d, ointment’ed and sugar levels checked . Jason showed up just a little later and Dr Carbeiner came in soon after that. We told her what happened and she was speechless “I don’t even know what to say, I have to go process this…†and that was the last time I ever saw her. We got moved down to a post partum room and baby got to come with me, the ped cleared him from having to go to the NICU and even the regular nursery, he was so feisty and looked so good. He did end up having jaundice, so we stayed in for another 5 days till that started to clear up and they finished giving him antibiotics for a possible infection, but ended up not being an infection. We went back and forth on his name, but finally settled on Justice Chord after 2 days of debate. Now, 2 months later he is doing great, he has come from 4 lbs 14 oz to 10 lbs 4 oz at our check up last week and we are all very happy to finally have the whole thing over. It was quite a road but we made it through and got our homebirth to boot. Who would have thought it, crazy…. Well, now that half your day is over from reading this, I want to say thank you again for all your T&P when everything was happening and look for our book coming soon titled “our crazy adventures†or something of the like, LOL, JK! Thanks for letting me share and I hope we all have a great life! also including my "Guide to surviving pProm" How to survive pProm The birth of our second child came with a very unexpected pre-curser. He was not due until august 22nd 2011 but on Friday, June 17th I awoke to a wet bed with no urge to urinate. When we arrived to the hospital we were told that my bag of waters had ruptured and that we should expect to see our new addition as soon that weekend or Monday. This was not our plan. Jason and I had been planning a home birth this time around as I had found out with my first son; I am a speedster when it comes to birthing. We had barely made it to the birth bed the first time around so we figured it would be much safer for all involved if we just went ahead and did the home birth this time. We had a great midwife, Karen Kennedy, and were slowly mentally preparing ourselves and our two year old Jaxon, for the arrival of our second son, Justice. However, obviously all that preparation changed on that Friday morning. I was immediately admitted to the hospital and put on bed rest. All the doctors and nurses I saw insisted that we would have the baby within days. Even as I would inquire about if it was at all possible for my bag to re-seal; they all said it was 100% not possible. Which in my case the re-seal never did happen, but I didn’t have my baby that weekend or for almost 5 weekends after that. This is an account of what I did to survive pProm (pre-mature rupture of membranes) Some of this information may be TMI, but when faced with this situation, the more information, the better in my opinion. First things first and I believe this is actually what got me through five weeks with out going into labor. Repeat this mantra to yourself and every doctor, nurse and janitor you see; “I will re-seal, I will NOT get infected, I will go home and have my homebirth!” mind over matter, you have to believe you can do it, even when you don’t want to go on any more, you have to repeat it. Trust me after being in for as long as I was, there were many times that I just didn’t think I could take it any more, I wanted my family. I had never been away from my son and the longest my husband and I had ever been apart was for one week out of the 18 years we had been together. I knew that the doctors and nurses I was dealing with were not going to give me much hope; they had seen this situation many times before and had induced many women in my situation. Delivering baby after baby and sending them to the NICU to finish “baking” them in their incubators even after telling the moms that they are the best incubator for their babies. Justifying to themselves and the moms that at 34 weeks their baby is okay to be born because once the baby has had steroid shots for lung development and put under the pProm conditions, they are comparable to a full term baby, so it’s okay to induce and deliver. I did not agree, these are the steps I took to insure that I would not become infected and to give myself the strength to stay strong for our baby. Stay as clean as possible. I showered every morning. Use a fresh washcloth everyday wit body wash; not bar soap, wash your private areas first then the rest of your body. I would use a fresh body towel every time I showered making sure to dry my private areas first and not using any part of the towel that had touched any other part of my body in that area. Each day I would use the previous days body towel as that days hair towel, this way I wasn’t going through so many towels each day. Every day, when I would take a shower, I would have the nurse change my bed sheets. This way the sheets were always clean, as this is where I had to spend 98% of my time. Also, I noticed that even though they would change the sheets each day, they would not change the top blanket. So I would keep track and after 3 days I would ask that they please change the blanket when they changed the sheets. Buy some Depends or some brand of disposable underwear and use the feminine pads that they will provide for you. I would put on a fresh pair of depends each morning after my shower and use a pad in them for the leakage. After each gush of fluid loss I would change the pad and if there was any leakage that may have wet the Depends; I would change them as well. But for the most part I would only use two depends a day. One pair after I got out of the shower and a fresh pair right before going to bed, always using a pad with them. The reason I would put the pad in the Depends is simple, save money. The depends cost about fifteen dollars a pack, the pads the hospital supplies are “free” or at least covered under your hospital stay, so I limited the amount of out of pocket money I was spending by doing it this way. Stay extra clean when using the bathroom. Every time I had to use the bathroom, I would be sure to wipe front to back. If I had a bowel movement I would try to wipe that area first, then wipe front to back. I also had some baby wipes next to the toilet and would use them only on my behind after a movement. It may have been safe to use them over the entire area, but I didn’t want any foreign contaminants to get near my vagina. Do not allow or severely minimize the internal exams. The more times they check you, the more chance there is for an infection to occur. I was only checked 3 times the entire time I was in; once upon admittance and two other times when I was having contractions that I really thought it might be time. Wash your hands constantly and drink loads of water. I would wash my hands all day long; before and after every trip to the bathroom and before and after every meal. Also, because you are loosing fluid all day long, it its very important to drink water all day long. Being pregnant you should be used to drinking lots of water anyways, so just keep up the good work. Every time I would have a large fluid loss, I would try to drink double the amount of water for the amount lost. Try to remember that, even though you are loosing fluid, you are also replenishing it with every sip you take. Your baby is constantly getting that water and peeing it out to refill the bag, so the more you drink, the more baby produces, the more water will be in your bag. Let gravity be your friend and occupy your time. Take advantage of being in that adjustable bed. Laying there was one of the hardest parts, your big and pregnant and even though you want the rest, it is hard being stuck in that bed all day. All that aside though, when you are laying down you tend to loose less fluid because of gravity. So, lay back, raise up your legs and read that novel you never had time to read or catch up on all the latest shows you have been meaning to watch. I read two complete Stephen King novels while in and now have a plethora of new recepies and cooking knowledge that I use for new and exciting meals for my family, thanks to hours of watching the food network. For the first two weeks I would watch nothing but PBS cartoons all day, because I knew that this was what my son was watching. On one hand, I felt like I needed to, so I could still feel like I was spending that time with him, I knew what he was watching and I was watching right along with him, even though we weren’t together. But on the other hand I started to become a bit depressed, because I wasn’t with him, so it really started making me focus on that fact and become sad and lonely for my family. I realized at that point that I had to change the channel or occupy myself with things that would help get my mind off the fact that I was away from my family. Thus the cooking shows, books, and even the internet. I spent a lot of time at babycenter.com, where I could chat with other moms and read posts about what others were going through. It gave me an outlet for what I was going through, and even though I didn’t know any of them, they helped provide support through their thoughts and prayers. Find people who are supportive and talk with them as much as you can. My main support team consisted of my husband, Jason, my childhood friend, Rachel; who also happens to be a stay at home mom, and my mid-wife, Karen. When ever I started feeling like I couldn’t go on, I would talk with one of them. They gave me support to keep going, like my own personal cheerleading squad, we would talk for hours on end and they would help to cheer me up when I was sad and listen and gripe right along with me when I would get frustrated with the medical staff, food or just being stuck there in general. Having them there on the other end of the line really helped to keep me firm in our decision to stay strong and try to hold out as long as possible and not give into the pressures to be induced. Don’t let the medical staff get to you. One day after being in for a couple weeks, my attending OB, Dr Carbiener, came in to check on me and she started to say “well, I’m glad to see you still here, you’re really…” “Breaking all the rules!” I interjected. “well, yes, we never expected to see you last this long” she finished. I told her, “this baby may want to try and be stubborn and come out, but he hasn’t met his momma yet. I’m going to re-seal and go home and have my homebirth.” She would smile in disbelief and head on out to her next patient. Around this time, during one of my ultrasound visits, one of the perinatologist came in to see me and to “prepare” me for what his “plan” was. According to him once I reached 34 weeks, I would be induced and deliver. This really did scare me, I went back to my room extremely upset, thinking that they were just going to induce me whether I wanted to be or not. This is one of the times my support person, Karen, really helped. “Always remember,” she said, “this is your body and your decision, just because they want to do something to you, does not mean you have to go along with it.” I talked with Dr Carbiener later that day and she supported my decision to keep going even if we got to the 34 week mark, which was still a couple of weeks away, and told me that we would revisit the discussion then. At one point, after about three weeks, my ultrasound showed that I had zero fluid surrounding my baby, this was another of those, “oh my god, they are going to push to induce me” moments and I was now seriously concerned for the safety of our baby. But, thankfully I had a very nice nurse that day and she helped to explain to me that even though the ultrasound showed no fluid, it didn’t necessarily mean there was no fluid. There could be pockets that they just couldn’t see to measure. This is also when I found out about how the more I drink, the more baby replenishes the bag, and it was very important to drink lots of water. The Friday before I was to be 34 weeks another parinatologist came in to see me during the ultrasound and he said “well, I see you will be 34 weeks on Monday, it will be time to induce you then.” And I said to him, “well, we’ll see about that.” I would have paid big bucks to have had a picture of his face when I told him that. My point for telling you these things is; don’t let them use scare tactics on you or pressure you to do something that is not necessary. Yes, my fluid levels dropped to “zero” and yes, I was uncomfortable from being stuck in that bed for weeks and yes, I was totally missing my family and wanted to go home. But, there was nothing wrong with me or my baby to constitute inducing me early. Every monitor strip showed him as having a strong heartbeat and even under the low fluid conditions; he was doing everything he was supposed to be; practicing his breathing and working out his little muscles by moving around. I held strong and drank even more water than ever before and wouldn’t you know it, my bag began to refill. I was still leaking but for two weeks after the “zero” AFI (average fluid index) results I started and continued to refill. By the fifth week I was back up to average fluid levels for our baby’s gestational age and I had held out another two weeks. So it kind of goes to show, if I had let them get to me and scare me into letting them induce me due to low fluid levels, my baby would have lost two full weeks worth of crucial in utero development time. Lose the hospital gown and get your own food. Have someone bring you your own clothes. If you look like a sick person, you will start to feel like a sick person. This is another “mind over matter” technique, if you are in your own clothes that you feel comfortable in, you may just feel a little more comfortable and able to deal with the whole situation. Also, have someone bring you some normal food. Weeks upon weeks of the same 4 items off of the hospital menu gets really old, really quick. Have someone bring you a home cooked meal at least once a week and some TV dinners that you may enjoy or even just some kind of snack that you like. I found that even though the cafeteria was preparing food for “sick” people, they didn’t have a very healthy menu. And the items they did have that should have been and could have been healthy; were not. They would send a salad with iceberg lettuce, no nutritional value, and it would be mostly wilted. The only green veggies they had to choose from were broccoli and green beans and they were not that great. Needless to say the green beans tasted like bad body odor and the broccoli only came one time looking like it wasn’t totally cooked to death. So, again, you may do well to have someone bring in other things to eat. The nurses’ station has a break room where they can store food for you and they can prepare it and bring it to you. Eat well, feel well. Walk a little anyways. Blood clots are a major concern when you are stuck in bed for an extended period of time. They will try to get you to wear these special (oh so fashionable) leggings, that are supposed to promote blood circulation, but I found them to be extremely uncomfortable. So I would do leg exercises in bed and I would pace my room for short intervals daily to stave them off from making me wear them. Just flexing and releasing the muscles in my calves and thighs by pointing my feet and bringing them back up and doing some leg lifts. This way you are still getting the blood flowing and you can stay in bed doing it. I would also just walk from my bathroom to the window a few times throughout the day to get me out of bed. Obviously, you don’t want to overdo it since you are losing fluid, but a few laps a few times a day is good for you and you can even drink water while you do it. Granted, I cannot guarantee that following this guide will definitely allow you to last longer under the pProm condition. This is just an account of what I personally did and how my pregnancy progressed. Hopefully it will give you encouragement and support for what you are going through. Know that you are not alone and others are going through this same thing at this very moment. I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and God has a plan for each and every one of us. So, if you do end up getting an infection and go into pre-term labor or have to be induced and deliver before you are ready, know that it is nothing you did wrong, it was just meant to be and everything can still turn out great. Thank you for taking the time to read this and if it can help even one woman last even one day longer in pProm, than I am satisfied with that. If you would like to read the full birth story for either of our children you can access those stories at – http://community.babycenter.com/journal/acbjcb22/2154715/jaxon_creed_has_arrived and http://community.babycenter.com/journal/acbjcb22/3417611/justice_chord_has_arrived_-_early Thank you again for allowing me to share and may you all have happy and healthy babies!