By Dana, Ontario
PROM at 25 weeks + 3 days. Delivery at 27 weeks.
Story added: 2006-05-18

on march 6 i was in a car accident, i was unconcious for a week, my baby was monitered through ultrasound and said to be fine. i was later sent home on bedrest but readmitted days later to a nearby hospital.

on march 20 i started bleeding, there were no signs of PROM and docters would not check (to avoid disrupting things). on April 23 i started leaking small amounts of amniotic fluid and was flown to another hospital that had a perinatal floor and a level 3 nicu. upon arrival i met with a member of the pediatric team. i was alone and away from home and it was overwhelming and scary for me. 3 hours later my family arrived and i was admitted to a floor room.

i was used to the hospitalbedrest thing but not to being so far from home, and my other 2 children 3yrs and 1yr.

i went into labour on 4 occasions, and slowly dialated before my son was actually born. it was stressful and i didnt sleep. i remember saying to the doctors the last time to just get this baby out of me, but again after sleepless (painful ) nights they stopped things (thank god).
after 2 weeks of being in this new hospital, away from home and alone my water had completely broken. i had no fluid and then got an infection so labour had to be induced (it was still 15hrs long) i had a hard time making it past those 4cm.

because of the long labour my family was able to make it to the hospital in time for the birth. but becase i didnt ever fully dialate my son was delivered in a labourmonitoring room and there was no pediatric team present, my son was delivered by a resident doctor(who was great)and literally came out on his own, no pushing as they kept telling me not to so they could get things ready.the doctor was walking away as he came out and he rushed back and cut the cord, the nurse grabbed him off the bed and ran down the hallway to the nicu.

i never got to see him really, but i saw that he was a greyblue colour and i knew he didnt cry.
i was scared and dad was white as a ghost but because of the infection and spontaious birth i went into shock and we were easily sidetracked wondering if i was going to be okay, my body shook and my temperature rose, and dropped, rose and dropped.

2hrs later things calmed down with me and the nurse came in to tell us we had a baby boy and he was so far stable.

a few hrs after that the nurse again came in and asked if we would like to see him, i was taken by wheelchair to the nicu where i finally saw this 1lb 14oz, 13inch baby covered in wires and monitors, my son.

Andrew was born at 27wks on may 7

After 5 long days on the ventilator Andrew was stable enough to breath on his own with only a small amount of assistance.

Andrew is now ten days old and wiretubei.v free (excluding the feeding tube) and me and his sisters continue to pray for him evey morning and night.he is our little miracle, and quite a fighter

it was a long and stressful time for the whole family while i was in hospital but well worth it.
the best advice i can give anyone who has PROM is when they say bed rest listen, i swear it was what kept andrew in that little extra timeand for prems every day inside counts.

we still will have a long road ahed of us but that 2 weeks from the time my membranes ruptured till the time i had him have made him that much stronger.