By Kuleen, USAOn Thursday April 13, 2000 my husband went out of town on a business trip. I remember telling people at work that I felt really uncomfortable with him going out of town. I was 24 weeks pregnant and up to that point had an incredibly uneventful pregnancy- no morning sickness, no weight gain, ultrasound at 21 weeks looked normal. That day someone asked me when I was going to start my maternity leave. I jokingly said "How about tomorrow?"
PROM at 24 weeksDelivery at 27 weeks + 4 days.
Story added: 2001-08-10
At around 5:00 am on April 14th I woke up when I felt fluid coming out. I figured I had urinated on myself. I went to the bathroom and changed my clothes. While I was putting my PJs on there was another trickle. I thought it was strange that I could have peed on myself again when I had just gone to the bathroom. I laid back down and about 15 minutes it happened again. This time on the way to the bathroom there was a gush.
I remember sitting on the toilet looking through my pregnancy books trying to figure out what had happened. All the books said that if you were leaking amniotic fluid to call your doctor immediately. All I could think was "What the heck does amniotic fluid look like?" I finally called the doctors and was advised to go to the hospital.
I then had to call my husband (who was 3+ hours away) and tell him that my parents were bringing me to the hospital. I can't imagine how hard the drive home was for him. At the hospital they confirmed that it was amniotic fluid. I remember that the first words out of my doctor's mouth were "This ain't good kid." Since my local hospital didn't have a Level III NICU, I was transferred via ambulance to a hospital about 30 minutes away. My husband got there about an hour after I did.
I stayed in L&D for the next 24 hours while they waited for me to deliver. I remember thinking at the time that there was no way I was going to have a baby that day. Thankfully, I didn't. I never went in to labor or even had a twinge of labor pains. I was put on a ten day course of two different antibiotics. I also received two rounds of steriods. One at the first hospital, and the 2nd 24 hours later.
I was transferred to the maternity ward where I stayed on bedrest for the next 3 weeks and 4 days. The doctors did an ultrasound and told us we were having a girl. The weekend before I delivered I started to notice just a twinge of pink in my morning discharge. It was so slight that it disappeared into the maxipad before I could show it to the nurse.
Early in the morning of May 9th (27wks, 4days) I started to have labor pains. I called my hsband and was transferred to L&D. By noon the monitors no longer showed contractions, but my back was aching. The doctors decided to wait a little longer before sending me back to my room. Within an hour I was in full-blown labor with contractions 5 minutes apart.
I was fortunate that the baby could be born by vaginal delivery. While we were in the delivery room, the NICU team asked the baby's name. We told them "Erin Katherine". The baby was born without any difficulties. We even got to hear a cry which was music to our ears. The NICU immediately went to work on little "Erin". After a few minutes the NICU nurse looked at us and said "What did you think this baby was?" We replied "A Girl." She said, "This isn't a girl, it's a boy." The NICU doctor thought she was joking. We quickly renamed our baby boy "Berkeley Philip". We got to take a quick look at him before he was wisked off to the NICU. I got to kiss his nose. I remember thinking how warm it was.
Berkeley spent 65 days in the NICU and did very well overall. He never had any surgeries or major complications. He came home 3 weeks before his due date with no monitors and no speical medication. Even his eyes checked out perfectly.
Berkeley is now over a year old. His health is wonderful and he is developing right on schedule. He is the joy of my life and I thank God everyday that he is here with me.
-Kuleen