By Misty Bott, Santaquin, UT USAI was 14 weeks 5 days pregnant with my second baby when I woke at 4 in the morning to use the bathroom. As soon as I lay back down in bed I felt a gush of fluid. I ran back to the bathroom thinking I must have started bleeding, but it was just clear fluid. I’d never heard of pprom before, so I didn’t know what was happening.
PROM at 14 weeks + 5 days. Delivery at 27 weeks + 1 days.
Story added: 2009-03-17
It kept happening all that day, so I called my Ob/gyn and went in for an ultrasound. I still had amniotic fluid at that point, and the baby was sitting right on my bladder, so my doctor thought I was just peeing my pants.
I kept leaking fluid for the next six weeks and worried something was wrong, but since I didn’t even know it was possible for your water to break that early I kept telling myself not to worry – it must be my bladder.
At my 20-week ultrasound I found out otherwise. My doctor noted very little fluid and immediately sent me to see a specialist, who told me I had virtually no fluid and that because I’d ruptured so early and had such little fluid, my baby would never survive. He advised me to terminate. I told him that wasn’t an option, so he told me to go home and wait for my baby to die.
I went on bed rest but began bleeding just a few days later and was convinced I was losing my son. I spent a night in the hospital, but his heartbeat was still strong, so I went back home for more bed rest.
I got steroid shots at 24 weeks, then at 25 weeks began bleeding again. This time they let me stay in the hospital. Although I had almost no fluid this whole time, my baby hung on until 27 weeks 1 day. He weighed 2 pounds 5 ounces and was 14 ½ inches long.
He was very, very sick and they had a lot of difficulty getting him ventilated, but after an hour they were finally able to get his lungs to open up. He was critically ill for the first 2 months of his life and ended up being in the NICU for 115 days, but he’s been home for 4 months now and is doing amazingly well.
Please feel free to email me if you have any questions about pprom or being in the NICU – I know how terrifying it is: misty.bott@gmail.com. Don’t give up on your baby. We’re so thankful we didn’t listen to the doctor when he told us to terminate. Miracles happen… we’ve been blessed to be able to bring our miracle home.