By Marie, BC Canada
PROM at 25 weeks + 6 days. Delivery at 34 weeks + 6 days.
Story added: 2001-09-24

My wife was pregnant with our second child when, at 26 weeks, her membranes ruptured. It was 7:30 pm, and, while thinking at first it was simply incontinence, we decided nonetheless to be safe and to call the maternity ward of our hospital for advice. They recommended she come to the hospital immediately. Once there, they performed two tests: the litmus, and the speculum. The litmus test came back positive; the second test was negative for amniotic fluid leak. And since there was no further leakage, we were sent home.

That night, at about 1:00 am, my wife jumped out of bed; our sheets and mattress had been soaked by another spontaneous gush of fluid while we slept. We immediately returned to the hospital, where my wife was kept overnight. An emergency ultrasound was performed the next morning. The results were negative; there was no appreciable loss of amniotic fluid. We breathed a collective sigh of relief, and were sent back home.

When a third gush presented itself, we went back to the hospital once again, and finally got the diagnosis that up until this time had been unspoken: preterm, premature rupture of the membranes (P-PROM). My wife was sent back home, this time with orders of permanent bed-rest until the baby arrived. Our doctor advised us that, in his experience, when the membranes rupture this early, labour and delivery are expected very shortly. He recommended we prepare ourselves for the possibility of extensive post-natal care to be conducted on our child, involving delivery at the big-city hospital(Vancouver, BC) rather than our local ward, incubation, medication, and connection of our baby to a lung machine.

The birth of our child did not come soon. Miraculously, my wife persisted in her bed rest for over nine weeks. Every single hour of every single day, however, she felt leakage; every single morning she experienced a gush of whatever amount of amniotic fluid might have accumulated overnight (amniotic fluid constantly replenishes itself, but because of the tear in her membranes, is constantly lost). Every night we went to bed wondering if this was the day it would all be over, anxious on the one part that our child did not have an optimally healthy womb, wanting, therefore, her to be out of there; grateful, on the other part, that she was lasting so long, that she was not being exposed to the harshness of birth and hospitalization too early, and that she was able to undergo as many natural gestational developments as possible, prior to birth.

At a couple days short of 35 weeks, my wife began to feel a definite progression in the contractions she had been feeling over the previous few days. At the hospital, she was immediately set up with external monitors. Since she had already been in labour for a couple of days by this time, oxytocin was administered to get things going. Our family doctor had insisted that a pediatrician be in the room, in the event any emergency intervention should be required. As things would have it, neither he nor our family doctor made it before our new daughter began to show her head.

At 8:25 pm, February 8, 2001, Caitlin Marie Thompson was born. She began wailing almost immediately, a beautiful sound for her mom and I to hear after fearing for the state of her lungs. Within a few minutes, our doctor and pediatrician arrived. They confirmed that our daughter seemed very healthy. She weighed in at 5 lbs, 12 ounces, a good weight for a 5-week pre-term baby. We each held her for a few moments before she was taken to the nursery.

Far short of the weeks we had originally expected her to spend in the hospital, Caitlin spent only ten days there. She was medicated for infection by IV, a procedure expected to last at least a week. This treatment was discontinued at day 4. She never required the use of a lung machine. We were advised her incubation would last at least a week, allowing her lungs to progressively get used to the oxygen- content in her air. She responded so well, she was removed from the incubator within 3 days. My wife feared being unable to breastfeed Caitlin, something very important to both of us, for a couple weeks. Instead, Caitlin was successfully breastfeeding by 3 days old. She was freed for release from the hospital on day seven, except that her bilirubin levels suddenly peaked, and she was returned to her incubator for three days of ultraviolet treatment.

We made constant trips to the hospital, my wife to continue with breastfeeding, but otherwise to visit with her, and to introduce family and friends to her, as she slept with her little blindfolds on.

Now, at nearly eight months, Caitlin is a very healthy and very smiley baby. She has had no health issues related to her time in the womb.

(More details -- including pictures -- can be found at http://members.home.net/ kirbythomps on)