By Amy, Spokane, WA USA
PROM at 17 weeks + 3 days. Delivery at 29 weeks + 1 days.
Story added: 2006-10-05

My husband and I were so excited to be pregnant with our first baby! It was a normal day. I hadn't done much all day and was looking forward to a nice dinner with my family. I had just sat down when I felt a gush of fluid. I had had bleeding from week 7 of my pregnancy, so a little moisture wasn't all that strange. . .or so I thought. When it kept on coming, though, I knew that something wasn't right. The Labor and Delivery Doctor did an exam and found there to be no signs of labor. Our baby was doing fine and so he admitted me to the hospital, and prepared us for the worst - letting us know that we probably wouldn't be there for long before the baby would come. I was given antibiotics for a week. . .and told to hang on for awhile -we'd be there until the baby was born. We were warned, of course, of all of the possible problems and complications due to the little or no fluid that there was around the baby, but our doctors were wonderful and kept reminding us that hope was all we had! So I stayed there. My AFI's fluctuated between 0 and 1 cm the whole time. I kept leaking the whole time, too. But despite all of that, our son, Samuel Hunter, stayed put for nearly twelve weeks. Over that time, he grew normally, had the hiccups much of the time, and was developing perfectly. The doctors were even able to see lung tissue and a proportional chest on the ultrasound done at 27+4weeks. At 29+1weeks I started having painful contractions. They determined later that infection had finally set in and my body knew that it was time for Samuel to be born. Because baby was breech they decided to do a c-section. At 12:01pm our baby was born. He was absolutely beautiful! Perfectly formed in everyway. Both of his APGAR scores at birth were a 7!! And the doctor performing the c-section was very optimistic about his survival. Two hours later, however, the neonatologist came back to tell us that our son would not be with us for long. His lungs had failed to develop due to the low level of amniotic fluid. While he had lungs, they only took up about 1/4 of the space that they needed to and they had no elasticity. At 5:15pm, our little Samuel passed from our arms into the arms that awaited him in heaven. Even in our loss, though, we are certain that we would not have traded any of those twelve weeks in bed if it would have meant less time with our beloved son. Miracles do happen. His five hour life, though not the miracle we wanted, was a miracle in itself and we are thankful for each second he was with us.