By Cory, Morton, IL USASeveral weeks into my first pregnancy, I noticed that my underwear was wet everyday. It smelled a bit funny, and I broke out in a rash between my legs. I asked several friends who were already mothers about it, and they all confirmed that discharge is normal during pregnancy. I really did not give it a second thought.
PROM at 26 weeks + 5 days. Delivery at 35 weeks + 7 days.
Story added: 2002-06-15
Outside of the normal "morning sickness" during my first trimester (although for me it was 24 hour a day sickness!) I really did not have any problems at all at the beginning. I even lost weight before I started gaining. At 24 weeks, I stepped on the scale for my weekly weigh-in and had gained seven pounds in one week. I had only gained five pounds total before then, so I was shocked by the sudden weight gain. One week later, I had gained eight additional pounds... 15 in two weeks. I wasn't eating more, and I began to get a feeling of dread that something might be wrong.
At my 26 week doctor appointment, my blood pressure suddenly shot up to 158/96. My doctor informed me that I was likely having signs of pre- eclampsia (not sure I spelled that right!) and told me to go straight home and go on bedrest. I also flunked my one hour gestastional diabetes test that day. All the women in the waiting room were staring at me when I left, I was crying and quite upset. I work full time in television, and we were in the middle of a ratings month. I had been putting in a lot of overtime, on a project that wasn't finished yet. Stress was definitely a factor here! But after one day at home, my BP went down to 146/90, so my doctor said the bedrest was working and to stay at home for at least another week. Then we would discuss going back part time.
Three days later, while laying on the sofa watching "Oprah", I felt the sudden warm gush of fluid between my legs. Absolutely frantic, I ran to the bathroom, not quite knowing what I should expect to find... blood, what? When I didn't find anything but clear fluid I realized my water had broken. I was absolutely frozen with terror. I could not get in touch with my husband and did not know what to do, so I called 9-1-1, unlocked my front door and laid down.
They look me away in the ambulance and my poor husband came home to a police officer standing in our driveway. When we arrived at the hospital, they did a ferning test and confirmed that my water had indeed broken. The statistics they cited were pretty grim. They told me I would likely go into labor within 48 hours and kept asking me if I felt contractions. I didn't even know what contractions exactly were at this point... it was my first baby! They started the magnesium sulfate (fun stuff) and gave me the betameth shots. I kept watching the hours tick away. And nothing happened.
The next morning they checked me into the antepartum unit and told me I would be there until I delivered. It was a long, hard nine and a half weeks... during which Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's took place. The doctors could not believe that I was able to last that long. I was very blessed with having plenty of amniotic fluid even after I ruptured, although I continued to leak. Once there, I realized that I had been leaking fluid practically my entire pregnancy. We had a few scares... my daughter liked to play with her umbilical cord, which would cause her heartrate to dip, and the doctors and nurses would rush in and flip me around to get her off of it. Even though I had passed my gestational diabetes test earlier in the pregnancy, it flared up a few weeks later, courtesy of the fact that I was confined to bed. They induced me at 35 weeks, 7 days. My beautiful baby girl was born on her Daddy's 41st birthday, on January 21, 2001.
Her APGAR scores were 9 and 9, and outside of jaundice and an umbilical hernia (which healed on its own within a few months) she's done great. I thank God everyday for the most incredible blessing I will ever receive.
I welcome e-mails from anyone who needs to talk who is going through this. We will likely try to get pregnant again in a year or so. I am very scared about making it through another pregnancy, but my doctor says it was a fluke and that it would not necessarily happen again.
Good luck to all of you!