By Amy,
PROM at 19 weeks + 3 days. Delivery at 19 weeks + 6 days.
Story added: 2000-03-23

I am 34 years old. This was my first pregnancy. We'd been trying for 6 months but my husband knew we wouldn't get pregnant until we were married. He was right, and once we were married, we conceived during my second cycle. I had had brown spotting all along that was being monitored. No signs of infection. I had one bleeding episode at the beginning of my second trimester. A small placental abruption was diagnosed and I chose bedrest for a few days until all the bleeding and browning stopped. I had a back ache on Sunday morning 19 weeks, 3 days and figured it was from cleaning my house.

That night I fell asleep during "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." I felt fluid leaking while I slept and figured I was having a discharge because my nose was runny too from allergies. I woke up at 10pm and went to the bathroom. On the way downstairs, fluid was running down my legs. I could not stop peeing, or so I thought. After beeping my doctor he told us to go to the ER. I will never forget the ER Residents face. The baby was still alive but I had lost 90% of my amniotic fluid. This was Monday at about 2am. By 2pm - there was none detectable at all. My husband and I decided to induce, especially since we want to have children in the future and didn't want to run the risk of my contracting an infection or needing a D&C or a C&E.

After 30+ hours of labor, 4 1/2 of it active, I delivered. The Baby was not alive. I do not know the specifics about our Baby and don't want to. It would be too painful to me. My family, friends, husband, stepson and I are all healing in our own ways. I will never get over the look on my stepson's face - he's almost 5 - when we told him the baby died and would not be coming to live with us. I hope to never have that conversation again. Thank you for reading this. I write it while trying to heal. This nightmare occurred exactly 2 weeks ago.