By Laura Wells, London England
PROM at 22 weeks + 2 days. Delivery at 24 weeks.
Story added: 2005-07-06

Very sadly, our darling baby Ethan was born after a long fight with PROM.

I was on a bunsines trip in the US and for the whole week I thought that I was getting really wet pants but never being pregnant before, I thought that it was ok.

Just before I was to check out and go to get my flight home, I had a bath and while in there I thought that I would just check out my cervex (for some reason, must have been to do with the leaking). To my horror, I felt that there was something that felt like a large blister where my cervex should be.

I dialled 911 and got taken to the nearest hospital where at 20 weeks and 6 days they said that I was 2cm dialated and that the waters were bulging through the cervex.

This was such a shock - I had been merrily buying pregnancy clothes and clothes for the baby as well a few hours before hand.

I had never heard of this happening before and never thought that anything like this would happen to me. The hospital managed to push the bag of water back and sew up my cervex but said that because the bag of water had been exposed to the air that it could rupture at any time.

I managed to fly home after this and get bed rest for 10 days until my waters broke.

This was terrifying and what I had been dreading what would happen, I couldn't stop crying and didn't know what to do.

When we turned up at the hospital I thought that we were treated very coldly and that the doctor was annoyed with us getting her out of bed! I cannot believe that people can be so callous. It's an outrage. It may be a day job for some people but to people that are loosing a precious baby - it's a whole different thing.

Very sadly, on 12th June, after an infection developed in my womb, our darling baby was born and lived just a short while before dying in our arms.

I still cannot believe what has happened but have tried to go back to work to get back to some normaility and try not to just stare at the wall all day long.

It's nice to see that there is a web- site where people recognise the fact that PROM happens - as I don't think it is very well know - especially in England.

My heart goes out to all the people that are reading this, because I guess that you too have lost a precious baby or have had a very traumatic time - just remember that you cannot judge a book by the amount of pages it has but what those pages have in them and that some of the greatest symphonies are those which are unfinished.