By Holly Norman, Denver, CO USAIt has now been 2 months 9 days since my little Gabriel died. Saying that this experience has been shocking or unbelievable doesn't even begin to describe my feelings!
PROM at 20 weeks + 1 days. Delivery at 21 weeks + 1 days.
Story added: 2004-06-29
After an uneventful FT pregnancy with my daughter Emma Daniella, I never expected to have any problems delivering another healthy, FT baby. I was so excited to find out that I was pregnant again with Gabriel. Due on August 18th this year, they would have only been 18 months apart. I found out I was pregnant and the end of last year just before Christmas and thought of it as my own little Christmas present from God.
The next few months progressed normally, feeling the tiredness of pregnancy and with more morning sickness than with my daughter, but other than that very normal and routine. I experienced very very light spotting for a day or two in my third month, so I called the doctor. Just to be safe they had me come into the hospital for an U/S which showed the baby moving around fine with a good strong heartbeat, so they said it was nothing and sent me home. April came and my DH and I were so excited to go in and get another U/S done so we could see our baby again. The apt. went wonderfully with all the measurements checking out just fine and we also received the wonderful news that we were expecting a baby boy. Not that we desperately wanted to have a boy or anything but knowing that we were probably only going to have two children and getting to experience both a girl and a boy, we were thrilled!
A week later, after getting out of the shower one evening, I noticed a few drops of water fall to the floor. Not thinking much of it, I continued to dry off when I leaked again. This time I knew something was wrong. My heart leapt up into my throat and I just stood there in disbelief. A few seconds later water just started gushing out of me so I wrapped a towel around myself and went out to lay down on the bed. After telling my husband what had happened, he grabbed me and our daughter and drove 80 mph to the hospital. They did a couple of tests, detected ferning from the fluid and confirmed that my water had broken. U/S examination found almost 0 fluid around Gabriel and the ER doctor on call gave us the grim facts. At 20w, Gabriel's lungs had not had enough time to mature in order to function outside of the womb. They told us that there was a 80% + chance that we would lose him one way or another.
My husband and I spent that night in the hospital in utter shock. How could this happen when we had just had our 5 month U/S the week before and everything had been perfect? We held each other and sobbed almost the entire night... it was definitely a nightmare. The next day, the perinatologist was a little more optimistic and said that I could be one of those few women whose bag reseals with bedrest... so with a little more hope in our hearts I checked into the hospital. I spent the next 3 days on complete bedrest (except to use the restroom), but continued to leak little by little even when I was laying flat. Continued U/S scans showed no fluid reaccumulation and they had the neonatologist come in to give us the grim statistics about babies born at Gabriel's gestational age. I was given the option to "terminate" the pregnancy which for me wasn't even thinkable. I so badly wanted this baby boy inside me!!! My "fixer" personality just wanted the doctors to tell me what plan I had to follow to make everything better. Hang me by my heels from the ceiling if you have to I thought, just let my baby be okay.
Since the dr's. didn't know how long my body would continue to let the pregnancy go without going into labor or getting an infection, they told me to go home and stay on bedrest and to come back at 24 weeks when Gabe was "viable". We were somewhat glad to be at home with our 14 month old daughter who we missed very much but were a little apprehensive to be 1/2 hour drive from the hospital. Things went fine the next day and a half with me resting at home on the couch. I continued to leak but thankfully stayed infection free. Then about 11:00pm one night while my DH and I were watching a movie, I felt a gush come out of me. Knowing that I couldn't have had that much amniotic fluid in there, I was panicked. I went to the bathroom and found to my horror that I had soaked my pad and my shorts with blood and was quickly filling up the toilet with blood and large clots. My poor husband was beside himself and again rushed me to the hospital, this time at about 90mph. They monitored me and told me I would probably go into labor at any time but over the course of the night the bleeding stopped and I never did have any contractions. Again, they told us there was nothing to be done and sent us home.
Once again, I had a good day at home on the couch and then again that same evening had another massive bleed. Again, my DH rushed me to the hospital and at that time they said I had lost over 2 units of blood and started giving me transfusions. At that time my doctor said that my body was just not handling the PPROM well. That without the amniotic sac there to act as a buffer, my uterus was contracting and pulling my placenta partially away from the uterine wall (which caused the bleeds). They then delivered the devastating news that they were going to induce me since my life was at risk and Gabriel had no chance of surviving. I can't tell you how much I fought them. After all, I could still feel Gabriel moving around in me and his hearbeat was always so strong when they came in to monitor it. It was with the heaviest of hearts that we finally agreed.
The labor and delivery were so sad and painful. I mean, when you know that soon you will hold and cuddle your new baby, labor is one thing. But to face all that and know that the outcome will be your baby's death? I continued to bleed very heavily the whole time losing pancake sized clots. At one point my heartrate was 32 over 45 and the doctors were very worried. 4 hours after they induced me, my little Gabriel was born. He was so perfectly formed in every way with his dada's long legs and cleft chin and my nose. At 8.8oz and at 11 1/2 inches long, his eyes were still fused shut and his skin was so paperthin you could see every little vein in his body. Too small and underdeveloped for his lungs to function, he did not even attempt to take any breaths, but his little heart kept beating for 10 minutes as we held him in our arms.
How do you express the pain in your heart at such a moment? I felt like I couldn't breathe, couldn't speak. I felt like someone had just stuck a burning hot poker into my heart creating a void so big it would never be filled. How could my body have failed him? The only reason that he didn't make it was because my body failed to be the safe place it was meant to be to help him grow big and strong. The hospital staff was so very sympathetic and understanding ~ for that I will always be grateful to them. They let us hold him, touch him, and rock him for the next five hours. We took a few pictures of us holding him close and I am so glad that I have those as memories. The funeral service came to pick him up that night, and giving Gabriel to my husband to walk down to the van with the driver - I thought I was going to go insane. How could I say goodbye forever to my son, knowing I would never see him, kiss him, or be with him again? Gabriel's body was cremated the next day and my dad and brother-in-law brought his little urn to us at home along with necklaces with little tear shaped pendants that hold some of his ashes so he will always be with us. We set up a little memorial in our room with his baby blanket from the hospital, a little teddy bear that wore his little blue stocking cap (twice too big for his little head), and the angel outfit we had planned on bringing him home from the hospital in. Those next few days were a blur, I don't really remember anything except intense sadness and grief, but basically I was just in shock.
I returned to work about 2 weeks after losing Gabriel, mainly to fill up my time and gain some sense of normalacy or control over my life. I remember going into my daughter's room one evening to comfort her from a bad dream and sitting down to rock with her in our rocking chair. All it once it hit me that the last time I had done this was when I had been home on bedrest... somehow knowing that that would be the last time I would hold both my babies safe with me and rock them to sleep.
At that point, I was still numb. I went about all the normal motions but without feelings to go along with them. Now I know that I was just in a state of shock. Shock that things had gone so horribly wrong. Shock that the milestones I had planned to go through with Gabe would now no longer take place. Shock that I would never see my son again or get to know the strong, wonderful man that he was supposed to be. Reading through some grieving books, "Empty Cradle, Broken Heart", "Where Is God When It Hurts?" and others, I started to confront my pain head on and began to release some of the pain my heart had been storing up. Although I still feel like I failed my Gabriel from time to time, I know that I couldn't have prevented his death and that has brought me a measure of peace.
The doctors still have no idea what caused my PPROM. Personally I believe that I might have had BV earlier in the pregnancy which caused the weakness in my amniotic sac, but by the time it actually caused me to rupture my body had already flushed it out of my system causing me to test negative for any infection at the hospital. My husband and I are not sure whether we have it in us to try again, to willingly put ourselves out there to possibly experience that kind of pain and loss again. As a woman, I think part of me wishes to be pregnant again and to finish a process that was so brutally interrupted. Being able to hold and love another miracle would be healing in its own way for me. I guess we will have to wait and see if that is in God's plan for us.
If you are currently in a PROM situation... hang in there. Each situation is so different from the next that you could hold out to 26 or 28 or 32 weeks and have a wonderful outcome.
If you have experienced a loss of your own angel... my heart goes out to you and if you ever need to talk about it, email me at holly.norman@qwest.com or call me on my cell at (720) 280-1907. Sometimes just knowing that you are not alone and that someone else is going through this with you makes all the difference in the world... I know it did for me!
If you are thinking about PAP (pregnancy after PROM), make sure you find a wonderful and understanding doctor who will be with you every step of the way, monitoring you and taking every precaution possible to make sure you have a successful FT pregnancy. Ask about vaginal U/S monitoring of your cervix (in case you have IC and have funneling), ask to be screened for infection regularly (which if detected can be treated with antibiotics), and be your own best advocate to get all the facts and make sure your doctor takes it as seriously as you do. Best wishes and may God be with us all.