By Sheila, Baltimore, MD USAWhile his due date was 2/17/03, Stephen made a surprise entrance on 01/02/03 7 weeks early. After feeling absolutely fine for weeks with no symptoms of anything whatsoever my water unexpectedly broke at 1:00 am. I went to the hospital and they tried to slow down my labor with Magnesium Sulfate so that the steroid shot for his lungs had time to work, but I still only ended up getting one shot out of the two because I was still having contractions. At 11:30 am they airlifted me out of my community hospital to one in the city that had a NICU and my husband had to follow me by car. He also had to stop at home to pick up clothes for himself to sleep in and socks for me since we had yet to pack anything. As it was we ended up in the same clothes for 3 days and the Hospital provided everything else we needed.
PROM at 33 weeks + 4 days. Delivery at 33 weeks + 4 days.
Story added: 2003-01-29
When I arrived they kept talking about an emergency c-section because his heart rate kept dropping below 70. I kept saying, "My husband isn't here, he's on his way," because I wanted one of us to be there awake when Stephen arrived so that he could be held. I didn't want him to be alone. But luckily my husband got there and Stephen's heart rate stabilized around 2 pm. At 8 o'clock his heart-rate dropped below 70 again and they rushed in and checked me and I was 10 cm dialated and started to push. I pushed for 1 1/2 hours but it didn't hurt because I'd only had my epidural at 5:30. They didn't check my dialation throughout the day because my water had broken early and they didn't want to induce an infection, so who knows how far along I was when I got the epidural. Either way I couldn't feel anything or move anything below the waist so my nurse would tell me when each contration started and when to push. Because I was progressing slowly people kept coming and going from the room and at one point all the nurses and doctors left. I had told my husband he could stay by my head if he didn't want to see a lot of blood but when everyone left I was worried about Stephen coming out with no one there to catch him. So even though nothing was going to happen imminently (which is hard to tell from my viewpoint), my husband granted my request to stand at the end of the bed in case Stephen came shooting out.
Finally, with 3 doctors, 1 delivery nurse, and 2 NICU nurses in attendence, Stephen was born at 9:29 pm. He weighed 4 lbs 10 ozs and was 18.5 inches long. He came out with a lusty cry so I knew his lungs were OK. The nurses let my husband and I hold him before they wisked him away to the NICU. Then my husband and my parents went to visit Stephen in the NICU while they delivered my placenta and stiched me up. I pushed for 45 minutes trying to deliver the placenta before they decided that it was firmly attached in one corner and they had to remove it maually - this took so long that my husband and my parents were lucky enough to come in to talk to me while I was being stiched up (from my 3 degree tear). I finally got wheeled in to see Stephen in the NICU after my epidural wore off at 1:00 am. So 24 hours later I got to see my baby!
Stephen stayed in the NICU for 15 days, and my husband and I were always there (with many other family visitors, of course!) He finally came home on 01/17/03 - exactly one month before his due date. Welcome home, Stephen!!