By Tarryn, Rochester, NY USAWe want to share our story to give others hope. POSITIVE THOUGHT, PRAYER and a GOOD SUPPORT SYSTEM definitely helped us. Miracles do happen and our little boy Seth is a testament to that.
PROM at 21 weeks + 1 days. Delivery at 34 weeks + 2 days.
Story added: 2006-04-18
At 21.1 weeks my water broke at 2am in the morning. I was not expecting my amniotic sac to break so thought I had wet the bed. Just to be sure I called the on-call Doctor and was told to come to the hospital. After 2 hours of tests and waiting, I was given a clean bill of health and sent home. Three hours later I woke up wet again. As soon as my OBGYN's office opened I called and got an afternoon appointment for an ultrasound.
The ultrasound showed possible lowered levels of fluid. The AFI (amniotic fluid indicator) was 12 and normal is 14. Nothing too alarming. We asked to see my doctor just to get some reassurance. She squeezed us in. After hearing our story from that day she dropped the bomb. She believed my water had broken and we were going to lose the baby. She explained 21 weeks was too early to save the baby and once your water breaks, most women deliver in the first week, maybe two. Or an infection sets in and at 21 weeks they have to terminate the pregnancy. She suggested we terminate. We were in shock. She wanted to send us for an additional test, since the 3 other tests were not reliable so early in a pregnancy and the leak might be intermittant.
The test was a BLUE DYE TEST, an amnio with dye injected into the amniotic sac. We learned if you do not leak during the time the dye is passing through, it may give a false negative. Also, if you do not know what you want to do about the pregnancy once you have the test results, it is not worth doing. You introduce another hole! We decided not to do it and went home to process our news.
I could not stop crying and that night I started having contractions and vomiting. We rushed to the hospital convinced we were losing our child. That's when our first miracle happened. I stopped having pain an hour after I was admitted. But here's something interesting to note. Because my OBGYN and that hospital did not generally deal with high risk pregnancies, they assumed I was losing the baby and just let me be. I was given no IV fluid to try stop the contractions, no medications, no monitoring of me or the baby. All I had was a test to see if I had a stomach bug since I had been vomitting. The next morning we were told to go home and wait. I later learned from the nurses at the hospital I delivered at that I should have at least gotten IV fluids.
It was now Friday and after calming ourselves down, we decided to make some changes. We started researching high risk OBGYNs in our area and looked for someone with fetal maternal medicine training. We called to get an appointment on Monday and were seen that Thursday. We also got educated on PROM cases, we had not even been told this lable, but found it on the web and this website. We read and started to understand what was happening and learned THERE WAS HOPE. Up until then we had not been told our baby could possibly survive! My husband and I had cried so much, we made a pact to stop and start getting positive. The crying was taking too much of a toll on my body. I was exhausted and dehydrated, both bad for pregnancy. We put me on limited bedrest, but my original OBGYN had said it was not conclusive it helped so I did still get up and walk around. I just did not lift things (even our two year old - hard)and I did not leave the house.
When we saw the new OBGYN, the first thing he said was if we wanted a chance to save this baby, I needed to get on bedrest, get horizontal. I was allowed to go to the bathroom and shower - NO BATHING. We made me very comfortable, internet connected at my bed, constant supply of water, tray table for food, books, phone, TV. Constant calls from family and friends to give us positive reinforcement everyday. Tell us we were going to make it. My in-laws stayed with us a few days and then my mom came over from South Africa. She came to save her grandchild and was not leaving until he/she was safely in the world and we were both recovered from the birth. She stayed 4.5 months. The help was invaluable from family and friends. They looked after our daughter, sent food and books and support. We had to learn to ask for help, accept we needed to rely on our loved ones and sometimes strangers, our unborn child became my number one priority.
Everyday I focused on thinking positive. Believing I was not going to get an infection, not going to go into labour and my child was going to survive. I told the baby too. I had to believe it. I know it can be hard to put the worry aside and hand the daily things over to others, but one has to in order to remain positive, rested and focused on saving one's baby. I believe this worked for me.
I was not allowed to leave my room unless to see my doctor once a week for an ultrasound. My AFI went down steadily. I had thought I had stopped leaking, but it must have been happening when I went to the bathroom because the fluid kept dropping. I went as low as 2. After a few weeks the leaking became very noticeable. I leaked constantly. I had to wear a thick pad and sometimes that was not enough. I never stopped leaking amniotic fluid. I just kept drinking water and the baby kept producing the amniotic fluid. This helped with lung development.
At 24 weeks I was admitted to the hospital. At this point the baby was viable so the NICU had a chance to save the baby if it came. I was given steroids to boost the baby's organ development, anti-biotics to ward off any possible infection and a tour of the NICU (an eye opener). We were educated on preemie babies and told some things to anticipate. We were given hope the baby could survive from then on. We were so happy to just get to 24 weeks.
At 24.5 days I had contractions and was given magnesium to stop them. It worked. From then on, things were quiet until the end. I had 10 roommates, one stayed 5 weeks, the rest came and went in days. I was not allowed to leave my room (until near the end and that had to be in a wheelchair). I was told to make my room homey, to make me comfortable to be there. The nurses believed psychologically it would make me stay longer. Photos, flowers, laptop, books, food, portable DVD player and such to keep me busy. I was just so excited each day to still be pregnant. We had a daily count up of my weeks and days of pregnancy. I had goals to reach and celebrate and I just kept thinking positive. I learned a lot about various things that can go wrong with pregnancy, and I clung to the success stories.
We celebrated Halloween, Thanksgiving, Chanukkah, Christmas and the New Year in hospital. My daughter visited everyday with her granny or dad and she loved to hear the baby's heartbeat being monitored.
Most OBGYNs will deliver a PROM patient at 34 to 37 weeks. After that complications can arise. We were shooting for 37 weeks, but at 34 weeks my ultrasound revealed the baby had moved from breach to transverse and the cord was hanging below. This, with low fluid, put the baby at risk for crushing its own cord and dying. I also had some bleeding. Normal for being ruptured as long as I had been but it scared me. I started to feel changes in my body and the nurses told me to tell my doctor. He saw me everyday because he had rights at the hospital I was at, but we set a date for my husband to meet with him too. At 34.2 weeks we met to decide a delivery date. The ultrasound worried him and the fact I was starting to not feel right. I felt ill that morning, had woken early and tried to eat something to make me feel better. It had not worked. He felt we were getting signs it was time, so agreed to deliver the baby via c-section that afternoon. 30 minutes after he left my room I was in labour. The contractions were not painful but after an hour they were less than a minute apart. I was rushed to labour and delivery. My OBGYN teased me that I must be very controlling to keep the baby in 13 extra weeks and as soon as he says it is okay to deliver I go into labour. I would not even wait a few more hours for my breakfast to digest!
So on 1/6/2006. Seth was born. A big preemie at 6lbs 1oz, but he was struggling to beathe. The NICU took him and discovered he had a small hole in his lungs. But all was well and Seth was only in the NICU 12 days, the hole closed and he learned to breathe on his own. He also had a small hole in his heart, which is closing up and does not appear to be impacting his health, he had difficulty digesting milk/formula the first few days, but after a week that came right. I started breast feeding him at 10 days and he is still feeding just fine on the breast. At 3.5 months he is doing great. He was confined to the house until recently due to the cold winter weather and illnesses, but he has stayed healthy thus far. He is smiling, laughing, rolling over, tracking objects and doing what other 3 month old babies do. He is a little smaller than average but growing at a good rate. His pediatrician says he is just fine and expects him to remain so.
I am also gaining back my muscle strength and functioning almost back to normal.
So please use our story to believe. Miracles happen and you play a big part in making them happen. Stay positive, don't be afraid to believe in a good outcome, it is so worth it in the end. You can be positive and believe and possibly be let down, or be negative and more than likely be let down. Give yourself and your baby the benefit of the doubt. Try stop crying and grieving prematurely, your baby has a fighting chance with your help.
Feel free to contact me for questions, just to talk or a positive reinforcement chat. I am not going to preach to you, I am just happy my little boy is alive.