By Kathryn Spitzner, Marion, IA USAMy sweet Killian's story,
PROM at 28 weeks + 5 days. Delivery at 29 weeks + 2 days.
Story added: 2007-08-03
Killian was my sixth pregnancy, and my husband and I were hoping he would be the third baby we would be able to bring home with us. I had two early 1st trimester miscarriages, a second trimester loss due to pPROM at 17 weeks, and my other two living children were both early due to pPROM at 33 weeks in two seperate pregnancies. Anyway, I became pregnant 4 months after the devastating loss of our son Lincoln in June of 2006. After his loss it was discovered that I had a clotting disorder and lupus, which both affected my health and my ability to carry children. I was placed on twice daily heparin shots and knew I would begin bedrest at 20 weeks with a goal of reaching 34 weeks.
At 18 weeks I began experiencing PTL and my OB ordered bedrest from then on out, I also started taking daily progesterone suppositories. I spent a week or so in the hospital for PTL off and on from about 24 weeks. I was placed on niphedipine (procardia) 40mg every 4 hours. During one hospital stay I started having chest pain and it was determined that the procardia was over stressing my heart in combination with severe hemolytic anemia, I then received three units of blood and discontinued the niphedipine. I also could not take oral terbulatine since it also has similar side effects. I was injected with the betamethasone steriods at 24 weeks.
On April 29th, the day after my husband's 26th birthday my water broke. We went to L&D fully expecting to deliver that night. I was 28w5d at that time. I also had a slightly elevated white count and fever. However, they admitted and began tocolytics to stop my labor and planned to wait as long as possible. We were leary of this plan at best. With my other pPROM pregnancies (this was my 4th case of pPROM) I always developed chorioamnionitis and got deathly ill, so we told them to be very conservative and deliver at the first sign of infection as I did not want a 29 week baby to also have to fight a chorio infection along with prematurity.
The morning of the 5th day after my water broke I knew I was beginning labor. I was in the hospital and told my husband to be near his phone because I would probably call him and tell him to get back to the hospital. We got up and he ate his wonderful hospital breakfast. My mother was in town taking care of my two older children (3 and 20m). At 9:30am I called my husband and told him to come back and told my mother to take the kids to daycare and hurry down because they said they would deliver at the first sign of infection/labor. My other deliveries were c-sections so this one would be too. My white count had tripled and my fever was back and the baby was showing signs of distress, but the OB was hesitant to call it "labor", and when she finally agreed to do the surgery it was like she was doing me some sort of favor! The nurse that morning also ignored me when I said I was in labor and gave me my shot of heparin. Then the anesthesiologist said he couldn't do a spinal since I had taken a blood thinner only hours before. So I had a general.
Killian Daron Alexander was born May 2, 2007 at 29w2d weighing 3lbs 8oz and 15.5 inches long. He spent 5 weeks and one day in the NICU as an absolute super stud preemie! He was discharged on my 26th birthday, June 8th. He is now three months old and weighs almost 8 pounds! He is doing very very well, and his big brothers just love him to pieces!