By Sandee, DePere, WI USA
PROM at 20 weeksDelivery at 24 weeks + 4 days.
Story added: 2001-08-16

I woke up during the middle of the night to find out my water had broke. This being my third pregnancy, I knew that's what it was. We went to the L/D and was seen by the doctor on call. He did an ultrasound and said there was plenty of fluid around the baby and every looked fine. Go home, but don't have sex is all he said. I knew I hadn't pee'd the bed, but went home anyway. Three days and several maxi pads later, I called my OB and asked to be seen. If it wasn't amniotic fluid, I wanted to know what it was. A quick test done by the dr. said it was and I was told to go to the hospital. I was 20 weeks along. After 3 days there, I met the periotologist who said she would begin seeing me after I got to 24 weeks, when babies can survive outside. Go home on bedrest and wait it out, but you'll probably go into labor before then was what I was told. I was seen by my OB each week then and we could see pockets of fluid, but no real accumulation.

Then came the day of the first appt with the peri. She did a biophysical profile and didn't like what she saw. Baby got a 2 out of 10, which indicated immediate delivery. That was the last thing I expected that morning. We asked if we could wait days or weeks, but were told baby would probably be dead within a couple of days. They didn't even want us to wait the 24-48 hours for the lung steriod shots to begin to work. Emily was born at 1:15 that day (our appointment was at 8:30 that morning) weighing 1#2oz 11-1/2" long. We were told her odds were 50/50 at that point. After the first two critical days, we were told that although she was still a very sick little girl, she appeared to be doing OK. She gave us 18 wonderful days. On the last day of her life (7-31-01), she had coded again and the doctors told we should take her off life support. She was on max life support but was still slipping away. That was an incredibly hard decision, but she was fighting a battle she wouldn't win. We didn't want to see her suffer anymore. Her lungs were too bad. She had several air leaks over the days prior to her death. She has PIE and basically just very premature and low birthweight. We were at a level III NICU and the doctors/nurses were very good and told us everything we wanted to know and did everything they could for her. The first time I held my baby was the last and that makes me sad. She is sadly missed by us all. We're trying to move forward but it's tough. I pray every night for every other preemie or PROM mom out there. Hang in there. There are alot of success stories out there and modern medicine is working new miracles every day. Playing God isn't easy.