By Peggy, Milwaukee, WI USAI became pregnant right after my husband and I got married in June of 2002. I figured that it would be a wonderful pregnancy just like all my family and friends have had. Never once did I suspect all that would go wrong in the next 28 weeks.
PROM at 16 weeksDelivery at 27 weeks + 6 days.
Story added: 2003-01-19
Around 12 weeks I started bleeding a bit (while we were on our honeymoon in the Dominican Republic). I came home and saw my Doctor immediately. She checked me out, found the heartbeat and did not feel that there was any need for concern. I had stopped bleeding also. We were relieved and I went on with my normal activities of every day.
On the day that I reached 16 weeks, I woke up at 5:00am to go to the bathroom, again, nothing unusual about that. Except as I walked to the bathroom, I felt my underwear had become wet. I thought I had wet the bed. I just so happened to have an appointment with my MD that evening, so I told her what happened. She again checked me out, found the heartbeat and checked my cervix, which presented as closed. Again, we were relieved!
At week 20, we had our ultrasound. The ultrasound that is suppose to be fun, where you count fingers and toes, and possibly find out the sex of the child. I immediately knew that something was wrong when the US technician asked me if I felt like I was leaking fluid. The picture on the screen was very difficult to make out. I asked her what was wrong and she told me that there was not a lot of fluid around my baby. The ultrasound only lasted 5 minutes, when she stopped and told us she was going to go talk to our doctor. We were then led to a room, where our doctor told us that they could not find a stomach or bladder and that our baby has almost no fluid around it. I was put on bed rest at that moment and sent home to wait to see the Perinatologist. Looking back, we knew that I had ruptured at week 16.
My husband and I were crushed with the diagnosis of oligohydramnios. We came home and researched everything we could on the internet about this diagnosis. We went to see a Perinatologist and had a Genetic ultrasound done two days later. She was able to detect that our baby did have a stomach and bladder, but still no fluid around her. We were happy to hear this news. But, I had begun leaking fluid every time I stood up. We were advised of our options, we felt that this child was in God's hands and that we would do everything we could to provide for our baby.
I spent the next four weeks at home on the couch waiting to be admitted to the hospital. On December 3, at 24 weeks, I was admitted to the best regional hospital with a Level 3 NICU in southern Wisconsin. I settled in for hopefully as long as I could hold out.
During all this time, our ultrasounds never showed any amount of fluid above 1. We knew the statistics and prognosis were poor, but we had faith that God would take care of our child. On the ultrasound our baby was growing, just a little small for her age. Everything else looked normal. Her heartbeat was wonderful and strong and she was quite active in my tummy. They were not able to tell us if it was a boy or a girl, but I knew in my heart that she was a girl.
At week 26 I started bleeding and having some contractions. The bleeding stopped and the contractions slowed and we were able to hang on until one day short of week 28. On Monday, December 30, 2002, I started bleeding again and the contractions became much stronger. The Doctors felt that the baby's heartbeat was dipping a little too low and they decided to do an emergency C-sections since the baby was breech.
Our precious girl was born at 8:04pm on December 30, 2002. She weighed 2.4 pounds. We named her Vita Ray. She did not cry when she was born, but she was moving. They tried her on many different respirators, and eventually tried her on the oscillator, which was the best one for her. We had her baptized that night, as the Doctor's told us that they did not think that she would make it. She lived for almost 12 hours. She fought hard for every breath, but her lungs were not developed enough. She ended up with a hole in her lung and a chest tube. They revived her a few times, but we knew she wasn't going to make it. We decided to take her off the machines and she died peacefully right away. We kept her in our room for most of the day. Our family all came to meet her and hold her. We said hello and goodbye in one day.
My husband has been wonderful and supportive in every way. We take comfort in knowing that we did everything we could for our child. She is watching over us from Heaven and we know that she will be there waiting for us when we cross over to meet her and our God.