By Sophia, SD USA
PROM at 16 weeks + 6 days. Delivery at 17 weeks + 2 days.
Story added: 2008-02-18

January 10 I had down syndrome ultrasound done, measuring of the skin in back of neck. They were excited how perfect the baby lay and asked me if I would let a technician do a scan for her recertification. I reluctantly agreed. After she was done another one showed up and asked if she please could scan for her certification quickly. Reluctantly I let her, feeling uncomfortable having my baby exposed to ultrasound for such a long time. She pressed on my stomach hard with the ultrasound to get the right angle. I went home and the next morning I woke up bleeding. I rushed to the ER. They could not find a cause for the bleeding, except there seemed to be a small blood clot behind placenta. They ordered bedrest. I was spotting for about 10 days and then the spotting stopped but I had a yellowish, very wet discharge. At times it was so much I had concerns about fluid leaking. I had my ob/gyn check for infection, which she did visually, taking no swabs or tests and was told that this discharge was normal in pregnancy. I also got an appointment with an infectious disease doctor as I was worried about my chronic Lyme disease flaring as I had been having low grade fever and sore throat since second week of January. She tested me for strep throat and told me everything was just fine, not to worry so much. Next visit I was suspected to have a bladder infection, however the antibiotic were not called in on time and I was told to wait till Monday when the lab results would be back. Sunday I felt really bad, as if I was coming down with something, my fever went high and I was burning up and lay in bed with cold towels wrapped around my head. At about three Monday morning (February 11) I got up to go to the bathroom and found watery discharge pouring out of me. Because of my regular very wet discharge I was wearing a pad, the pad was soaked, as were my panties and pajamas. When I sat on the toilet it was like peeing out of the vagina. I was very worried, this was not normal. The smell of this discharge was strange, almost foul, but a weird smell I had never smelled. Yet as I hadhad this very wet discharge and had been told this was normal, I resolved to go to my doctor first thing in the morning. The doctor was not there and the nurse sent me to the emergency room. At the emergency room I was put in a room and a student doctor came in and did a vaginal exam that hurt a lot. I was told my cervix was firm and closed. I went to the bathroom and there was some pinkish tissue discharge after I went, which I blamed on the painful exam with whatever tool he shoved into me. Two nurses came in and tried to find a heart beat with a doppler and they could not find it, they kept telling me they were not ob/gyn nurses and not to worry. They took blood and sent me uo for an ultrasound. The ultrasound technician did not say a word to me, and was talking in a very low voice to a student. I kept asking her, "Is the baby aright? Is the sac alright?" And she just yelled at me, "Ma'am, I;m doing pictures of the whole uterus right now...." I started crying. She continued the vaginal ultrasound and it hurt. Suddenly I heard a heart beat, the same strong, regular heartbeat I knew was my baby's and I became very hopeful and paryed. She said she was scanning for a radiology doctor right now and then had the radiology doctor called in. That lady also stared at the screen and did not even say hello to me. I heard her say, "There is very little fluid left around the baby." Only then I knew what had happened. My cell phone rang and it was my husband and I told him the two things I had learned, there was very little fluid left around the baby but there was a heart beat. I heard my husband choke up at the other end. He was at work and he had no car, as I had the car. He told me he would be right there. He ran more than three miles from his work to the hospital in icy cold weather, with his hands and cheeks getting frostbit, no gloves and tears freezing on his face. They moved me back down to the emergency room and when my husband got there they were re- pulling my blood as they had lost it. The emergency doctor did not show up for the longest time and then never told me what had happened, but nurses started asking me "When did your water break?" from which I deferred what had happened. They said they would send me to the specialist, the same one whose office had done the down syndrome scan, and he would "go over the options with us." The lady that did that ultrasound was nice. I was holding my husband's hand and she let us see the screen. She scanned each body part and measured the baby and let us hear the heartbeat and showed us the kidneys, stomach, spine, face, feet, hands etc....
Then the specialist came in and said that if the water breaks at such an early gestational age the prognosis is dim and that he will take a wait and see approach. He told us that if I make it to 24 weeks, when the fetus is "viable" he would put me in the hospital and put me on antibiotics as witout a sac I and the fetus were very prone to infections. Asked why I could not have antibiotics now he said that the fetus was not viable yet, and that the practice was to just wait and see till 24 weeks. My husband asked if I could go to work, he asked what I do, I said Patient Care Assistant (which is a physical demanding job) and he said, "Sure you can go to work....." I asked what the survival rate of babies whose water broke at such an early gestational age was, he answered, "Well, it is not zero." Asked if Iw as on home bedrest he said that there is no prove that bedrest made a difference and that this would
He told me to see my regular ob gyn the next day. The heartbeat was there again. She told me to not give up hope, that she would see me once a week till 24 weeks and the specialist would see me once a week. I asked if the lab results for the bladder infection had come back and she said that the sample had been contaminated. She asked if Iw as "done taking the antibiotics she called in on Friday." I told her that on my Friday call the nurse had told me that they were waiting for the return of the lab results which would be on Monday, no one had told me that antibiotics had been called in to the pharmacy. I asked if Ishould take antibiotics now. She said she would rather not have me on antibiotics since so few were safe during pregnancy and that my white count at the ER had come back normal. She also said that she wanted me to stay home from work
So I went home again and started researching. After a few days of research I ran into this site and started carefully reading the stories. It seemed that those on bedrest and antibiotics right after PROM did better than those just sent to "see and wait." I kept pouring fluid. Knowing that fluid was mostly baby's urine it was a sign to me that baby was alive. However, the fluid got bloodier and bloodier and Valentine's Day in the mornng there was a blood clot and then there was no fluid and I did not feel baby move anymore. I prayed for a miracle, the miracle that the sac had sealed.... In the evening I started having cramps which I dismissed as gas pain but I woke at 3 am and the pain was so great and coming in waves, that my husband told me those were contractions and he called the on call doctor who told us to go to Delivery and Labor. We made it there and they put me in a room and tried to do all the things they had to do and the pain became unbearable. They were trying to do a vaginal exam and I was slapping them away and trying to bite them, my husband had to hold me down. The baby was born 6:38, had been dead inside me. I don't want to talk about the pain that has been there ever since the hope was gone.
He was a boy and we named him Canku Sica, "Rough road" or "Sad road" in Lakota, as my husband had seen this boy in a vision long time ago and I remembered Canku from when he shared this with me and I recognized Canku as the little baby we just lost. My husband got his pipe bag and sage and they let us do the necessary Lakota ceremonies to pray for a safe journey back to the spirit world. I see my son ride through the yellow grassed prairie on a buffalo. everything is so peaceful and the grass dances in the wind, the dusty earth is warm, butterflies and swallows fly overhead and the sun is warm, all the earth children are standing soldiers to embrace my son and protect him on his journey back to the spirit world. Then I see the buffalo climb up into the clouds and with him the little bundle on his back. Climbing up into the spirit world, perhaps he turned into an eagle, my tears won't let me see....
Hau mitakuye oyasin.