By Beth Patterson, Cheshire UK
PROM at 18 weeks + 3 days. Delivery at 30 weeks.
Story added: 2009-12-30

My pprom happened at 18weeks. I will go into as much detail as I can because when I was reading all these stories I wanted to know every little detail possible! Up to the pprom I'd had no problems pregnancy wise at all, but at 8 weeks I did have tonsilitis and was quite poorly and it may have had a hand in my pprom but I'll never know. I went to bed that night (18wks3dys) after having been out to the cinema for my birthday the next day. I woke to find my pants wet and thought maybe I'd wet myself but it felt different so I went to the toilet then back to bed but not long after I felt really wet still and when I checked it seemed colourless and odourless and I knew it was amniotic fluid from my first pregnancy, Thats when I knew something was very wrong. In hospital (not my own as I was visitng parents) they gave us no hope at all and offered us a termination or conservative management (ie. go home and see what happens. As there was a strong heartbeat I could not bear to terminate and thought I'd rather it happen naturally. The scan showed reduced fluid but still some. A week later after leaking mostly at night or when lying down I started to bleed a little bit. We went to my local hospital where I was scanned again and there was now no fluid measurable at all. They still gave us a bleak picture but did not mention termination. I stopped bleeding after a day or two and went home. I continued leaking pretty much none stop, I had bloods and swabs etc done twice weekly and fornightly scans which always showed no fluid but baby was growing and everything appeared to be where it should be. At 23weeks I started to bleed again this time much worse as I woke up in a pool of watery blood. They told me it was the placenta coming away from the uterine wall and the amount looked much worse than it was due to being mixed with fluid. From this point on I bled and leaked copius amounts of fluid constantly. I spent 3 weeks in hospital and became anaemic from blood loss but it was treated with iron successfully. Then I went home at 26weeks and continued going to clinic to be checked, still bleeding and leaking all the time. Then at 30 weeks exactly I went into labour, I didn't even realise I was in labour because I been having cramps constantly with the leaking anyway. It got very regular and quick and worse so we went into hospital and they told me I was 1cm dilated and tried to stop the labour but 45 mins later I was fully dilated and the baby was very distressed, as he was breech I was rushed for an emergency c-section. I had been told I would need a classical c-section but a transverse was thankfully performed. Joseph was born weighing 3lb2oz in poor condition, no heart rate. I was told much later that his lungs were completely rigid and they didn't think they be able to open them, thankfully they did. He was transferred to another hospital with a higher level NICU where he was put on an Oscillator (high frequency ventilator) and he had two chest drains in because of a pneumothorax (punctured lung). He was very sick and we were told it was pretty much 50/50, which was better than the 5% chance of survival we always got during the pregnancy! He came on leaps and bounds and came off the oscillator after 5 days onto normal ventilation then off that after 2 days, straight into oxygen, never needed c-pap. He was transferred back to our hospital after nearly 3 weeks and spent another 4 weeks in NICU before coming home on oxygen (very small amount), he is now 10 weeks old and just perfect. He will hopefully be weaned off oxygen in a few months. All the doctors were amazed I got to 30weeks but I have spoke to many others who got this far or futher so don't give up hope and the doctors give you the worse case scenario every time because they have to but it isn't always the case, Joseph is proof that they can beat the odds and bear in mind I had NO fluid the whole 12 weeks yet he survived. Please mail me if you need support or encouragement.