By Karalyn Currie, Canada
PROM at 32 weeksDelivery at 37 weeks.
Story added: 1998-10-16

My story is a very strange story, I'm sure as is everyone's. My membranes ruptured at 32 weeks on May 15 1997. My EDD was July 5 1997. My husband and I were watching the season Finale of ER. It is pretty ironic because on ER that
evening, Peter Benton's girlfriend delivered her baby at 32 weeks. The baby had all these health problems. My husband I thought how awful. An hour after watching this show my water broke. I thought this can't be happening, it's too early. We were totally shocked. At first I was kind of confused. Earlier in the day I had noticed some backache and a little cramping. My midwife said that this was probably just the normal pains of pregnancy. She of course was going out of town that weekend to visit her family. I paged the midwife on call. The fluid just continued to gush out of me. She said to get right over to the hospital. We couldn't go to the hospital where my midwife has priveleges because of the prematurity of the baby. At the hospital, the doctor examined me, which wasn't fun, because everything has to be so sterile. They did an ultrasound and it showed that the fluid level was very low. I stayed in the hospital that evening. They told me I would go into labour within the next 24 hours.

This was all so overwhelming. Well nothing happened that evening or the next day, so I begged my midwife to let me go home. I had no sign of infection and no signs of imminent labour. I stayed at home on very strict bed rest for 5 weeks. I never went into labour on my own, I had to be induced at 37 weeks. They didn't want to risk infection, and begged and pleaded not to be induced but I also had to do what was best for the baby. My labour was only 4 hours. She was born on June 18 1997. My daughter was born breathing on her own, healthy. The only problem that was observed was a poor suck and refusal of the breast. She also developed jaundice the next day, although that was due to ABO incompatability. We spent about a week in the hospital with her and then we were all able to go home. She is now 16 months old and doing just fine. We haven't noticed any major health problems with her. She actually has been very healthy, never had a cold yet.

I wasn't able to continue the breastfeeding because of several factors, mainly the poor sucking reflex. I nursed her for about 4 weeks. We are very thankful that everything turned out all right with our daughter. It was a very scary time in our lives. The doctors kept telling me that everything would be all right and that I would be going into labour within a few days, well that never happened. I had an ultrasound done once a week until she was born to determine how she was coping and to check the level of fluid. I'm now expecting my second child and am worried to death about this happening again. They never could uncover what happened to make my membranes rupture.

Diagnosis: Unknown cause.
Thanks for letting me tell my story. This is a great web site!