By Lind, Sydney, NSW Australia
PROM at 13 weeks + 5 days. Delivery at 38 weeks + 4 days.
Story added: 2013-12-16

Firstly I would like to thank all the brave and amazing Mums and Dads on this site who have shared their stories, i had read them all in a time of need, and found the successful stories were less common, but all stories allowed us to make a well informed decision. I have come back a year on from my PROM experience, to share my journey and hopefully give some hope to others in a similar situation. We found out we were having twins 7 weeks into the pregnancy, we were over the moon and couldn't wait. At week 9 we told immediate family and all were over the moon, like most we waited till after we got the 12 week scan to share our excitement with friends, at week 8 and 10 I had some bleeding, nothing serious and went to see my OB and all was ok, the 12 week scan came and we were given the all clear, 2 healthy sacs and healthy heart beats. We announced our news to friends and began planning. It was Christmas and in full party spirit, we had a small getaway and were excited by our interstate trip. I had been very tired and while at the airport found i had more bleeding. a desperate call to my OB, he put me in touch with the hospital at the destination, who then told me if i was miscarrying there was nothing that could be done, best was to wait it out. The bleeding stopped and i thought nothing of it, as the previous ones were checked out and all ok. I had also had so many people tell me they continued to bleed during pregnancy. About 2 days later I was having an afternoon nap, when I woke to a large amount of fluid, not thinking much a ran to the bathroom, thinking I had just lost bladder control and didn’t realise as I was sleeping, I felt I lost a lot of fluid, but new nothing of my waters breaking this early. I did try find books on weak bladder during early pregnancy and I found nothing on this. I didn’t then think anything on it and carried on enjoyed our week getaway. I had an extremely tentative OB, who said till I can feel movement I should come in for a scan every week, being nervous I took him up on this. The following Friday I took my Dad along to come see the 2 little babies growing in my tummy. It was at this scan my OB’s face went totally white! He asked me if I had lost a lot of fluid and I went on t tell him my experience. This was the beginning of an extremely intense 5 weeks ahead. One sac had ruptured and there was absolutely NO fluid around the baby, the other baby was fine bouncing around. He sent me for further scans, with not much news I went home, both hearts beating strong, one with fluid and one very squashed, I was a total mess, we were called in the following morning after my OB had a chance to speak with the MFM team. I was put on anti-biotics and arranged to see the MFM team on the Monday. My husband and I researched every avenue we could find, he emailed every professor and we tried to educate ourselves on this topic, our world had just been turned upside down. We were given advice to terminate the pregnancy, and other options as well, we were told the outcome of the baby would not be great, and the healthy twin could get an infection for I now had waters going through me. Unfortunately no 2 cases were the same, the goo out comes were hard to find and the information was difficult to sift through. We spent hours, the MFM team were incredible, they were a huge support and they tried to inform us as much as possible, but evidently the decision was ours and no one would or could tell us what to do. We were given all the information, when we could terminate and the different outcomes and statistics of prem babies. We had visited the neonatal pead, we went to see the level 3 ICU unit, nothing could prepare us for this situation and no one could tell us what to do, we had 3 options, terminate the whole pregnancy. Terminate the baby with ruptured membranes and hope this doesn’t affect the other sac and baby, or let the baby grow and it wouldn’t survive after birth. I tried everything people had mentioned, I drank 3 litres of water a day and took vitamins with the hope that the membrane would seal, or reattach to the wall and stop the break. Unfortunately as time got closer this didn’t happen. After all our research we took the decision to terminate the baby with the ruptured membranes to give the other baby the best possible outcome and hopefully revert to a singleton pregnancy. We gave this enough time that if it did effect the healthy baby we had a couple of weeks. After these weeks I still had a little baby healthy kicking like mad and moving around. My husband and I after so much deliberation decided to keep this baby, we couldn’t come to terms with terminating this healthy fighting little being growing inside. We knew our risks of infection and pre-term labour, I was monitored extremely closely by my OB and had weekly scans to see all was progressing. I took every precaution to not get an infection and not get sick, I stayed home from weeks 24-30 (pre-term labour where outcomes aren’t as positive) Bed rest was not recommended, and was lucky I could work from home to keep my occupied. I kept as positive an outlook as possible and believed in this little person who was kicking like mad and moving around. We got to week 30 and I was over the moon! My goal had been reached… I discussed all the labour options with my OB, who suggested for safety reasons to go for a C-section. I took this advice he was going away and was getting back when I was going to be 38 weeks and 4 days, we booked this in then and there, I didn’t want to push my luck I wanted the baby out healthy and getting to full term was such a big achievement for us. At 38.5 weeks I gave birth to a gorgeous happy and healthy little girl. They removed the other baby at the same time. We will never know why my waters broke so early, or what happened, but we did have a gorgeous baby at the end. I thank my lucky stars every day, and again that the wonderful people on this site for sharing their stories, as this got me through in my darkest days. I now cuddle my nearly 6 month little girl and treasure every second with her. She was a total little fighter and our true miracle.