By Libby, San Antonio, TX USA
PROM at 37 weeks + 2 days. Delivery at 37 weeks + 3 days.
Story added: 2009-11-03

I woke up at 5am the morning after I turned 24 feeling the need to urinate, but it was different. That feeling that you get when you're on your period and a clot is about to come out... that's the only way I can describe it. When I went to the restroom a trickle came out, but it wasn't urine. I convinced myself I had urinated, but after 15 minutes of feeling very uncomfortable in bed, I went back to the bathroom to sit on the toilet. This time a small gush... "That wasn't pee- my water broke!" I told myself. Half excited and half scared, I yelled to my husband who was probably half asleep still and I told him what had happened. I decided to call my midwife (we had planned a home- birth). She asked me to describe the fluid and said to keep taking my temperature and come see her at 11am and until then not to use any public restrooms. We went to the store to purchase food then prepped our apartment for the birth of our daughter with sheets, towels, and everything else we planned on using. Excitedly we visited our midwife. She checked me and I was 75% effaced, 1/2 cm dilated and our little one hadn't engaged yet. She gave us black and blue herbs and said to purchase caster oil and gave us instructions to get this labor underway. After the visit I had little contractions that were erratic and everywhere with absolutely no pattern and nothing to catch my attention. I tried going for walks and getting on my birthing ball... anything to try and get labor going. At 7 or 8pm- our midwife visited us and checked me again... 90% effaced and 1 cm dilated. She said to just get some rest, do another round of herbs and to called her if I started feeling the urge to bear down. I got 3 hours of whatever rest I could because I was extrememly uncomfortable, but by then whatever contractions I had had stopped completely. Around 5:30am the next morning (about 24 hours post-rupture) I was checked again and absolutely no progress. Around 7am our midwife called the hospital and the protocol was immediate C-section. So we prayed together for peace, packed my bag, and my husband and I met our second midwife at the hospital. My husband had physically become ill by the prospect of going to the hospital, but we got there, registered, and they put me in a gown and sent me to triage. It was there that they told me I was pre-eclamptic (which was complete nonsense- the situation had sent my blood pressure up and the reason there was blood in my urine was because my water broke). They did an US and there were still some pockets of fluid surrounding our little one. My midwife said she was the wiggliest baby she had ever seen during labor! Deciding that it was okay to let my be induced- they gave me an IV, filled it with fluid and antibiotics. About 3pm I had only reached 4 cm, but was 100% effaced. They then amped the pitcon up all the way and after two contractions my husband begged me to get an epidural (it was excrutiatingly painful and I was exhausted). They gave me the epidural (unfortunately they stuck it too far in and I had spinal headaches for a week and a half afterwards) and three hours later they woke me up and said I was ready to push. My daughter's heart tones were perfect and she was still a very wiggly baby. My midwife said my daughter never reached zero station until after I started pushing. Twelve minutes later we met our little girl... all 6 lbs 15.9 oz of her. I had torn around my urethral opening and the bleeding hadn't stopped. I lost 1 liter of blood, but we decided against a transfusion. After sewing me up and making sure my blood pressure was on its way down... they handed me my daughter and I was able to start nursing immediately. They sent her to the nursery for a bath, but when she was "hungry" they sent her back to me. After a couple of very difficult weeks (mostly because of the spinal headaches) we felt like the little family that we were meant to be. My daughter and I came out alive and healthy and THAT is what truly matters. She is truly an amazing blessing! My daughter Phoebe is now almost 18 months old and I'm 23 weeks pregnant with our second child- a little boy named Stephen. We're praying that we don't have PROM with our son, but if we do... I kinda know what to expect now and we have opted to have a hospital birth this time around. :-)