By Tammy, Bowling Green, Ky USAI was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome at age 27 even though it first developed at age 22. My husband and I had tried for several years to have children and could not figure out what was wrong. In 1997 when the link was discovered between hyperinsulinemia and PCOS, I started taking Rezulin to help my body recognize and use insulin. It was at this point that I started becoming pregnant, only to miscarry in the first trimester. Later it was determined that I had a progesterone deficiency that was causing the miscarriages. This happened three times before we knew what was wrong. In 1998 we decided to seek infertility treatments to become more agressive in our attempts for a child. It was at this time that we discovered that I had cervical cancer and I had surgery and treatments to remove part of my cervix and lost a couple of years in the quest for pregnancy.
PROM at 15 weeks + 4 days. Delivery at 23 weeks.
Story added: 2002-06-24
In December of 2001, my husband and I decided to try one last time to agressively pursue pregnancy since we were both about to turn 36 and I started injectables. My pregancy test was negative in January and we were in the process of deciding if we would try one more cycle when we discovered that I was pregnant naturally. We were ecstatic. I immediately started progesterone supplements and agressive monitoring of the pregnancy. We made it to 12 weeks, then 13, then 14 and started to relax. It seemed that we had made it past all the danger zones. We started picking names and shopping just a bit. My water broke at 15 weeks, 4 days after an uneventful day. We went to the emergency room and the ER doc told us that it was over, to go home and wait for the loss of the pregnancy. He said that I would go into labor spontaneously on my own. We left the hospital in despair.
We started researching immediately, looking for any and all information on premature rupture of membranes. We discovered a doctor in Tampa, Florida that was attempting to graft the amniotic membrane in an attempt to save the pregnancy. We contacted him and within a few days were on our way to Florida. I had the amniograft on 16w4d. By 17w1d, we learned that the surgery had not worked and we headed back to Kentucky with heavy hearts. It was at this point that I discovered the Kanalen website and started reading stories. Because of the hope that the site gave us, we decided to put me on complete bedrest and take the very small chance that we could save this pregancy and that our baby's lungs would develop.
Days turned into weeks and we began to gain hope that we were going to make it. At 22w4d I went into preterm labor and gave birth to our son, William Houston, on Father's Day at exactly 23 weeks. He was born alive but his little lungs were just not developed enough to sustain his life. He did have leg and foot deformities that the doctors had warned us about because he did not have enough fluid to move around in the pregancy, but we loved him just the same. He was just too soon and none of the doctors would stop the labor for fear of infection, even though I had absolutely no signs or symptoms of uterine infection. We don't know if he would have made it or not if we could have held off labor. The doctors refused to give us a chance. It turns out that it was cervical incompetence due to the cancer surgery that caused the rupture, not infection but the doctors screamed infection the entire time and told us to terminate. We became so weary of hearing about our chance of infection. We just wanted a chance for this child.
Our arms are empty and our hearts are broken. We wanted this little baby so much and are devastated that he did not make it. Given what I know now, I still do not have any regrets. We gave our baby a chance at life even though all of the doctors told us that there was no chance. We got to hold an angel for an hour and a half and that was enough to touch our lives forever. We have documented the journey at www.caringbridge.org/ky/tamivo