By Stella Wheeler, Los Alamitos, CA USA
PROM at 24 weeks + 6 days. Delivery at 25 weeks.
Story added: 2003-11-17

I worked as a nurse in Labor and Delivery and I also had PPROM and premature delivery. My son, Sam, was born on 8/23/03 at exactly 25 weeks gestation. I also had the 1st trimester bleeding and some quite heavy bleeding with passage of tissue. After several visits to L & D and confirmation of a closed cervix and a perfectly fine placenta I was always sent home. The day that I ruptured I had been feeling flu-like and achy all night the night before and in the morning felt a tiny gush of fluid....thinking I had urinated a bit I didn't go to the doctors right away. After several hours of cramping and the flu-like symptoms my husband took me to the hospital. My membranes were definitely ruptured and I had an infection of some kind. They rushed me by ambulance to a hospital with a Level-3 NICU. I was very sick with a fever, high WBC's etc.... I definitely had some sort of infection. With my conditioning worsening (I was in sinus tach with a heartrate of 220) and the baby having prolonged decels in the 40's they took me in for a crash c- section. It was done under general anesthesia and I woke up in ICU on a ventilator. They did not want to extubate me to quickly due to the problem with my heartrate (which had gone back down after delivery). I was intubated and awake for 5 hours!

My son was 1lb. 12ozs. and his apgars were 1 3 and 7. It took them about 7 minutes to get him going. He was on a ventilator but I was told he was doing well. I saw him 2 days later. He was so tiny and so beautiful.


My NICU experience was so hard. Touch and go from minute one. My son was doing remarkably, eventually taking my breast milk by feeding tube and slowly growing up to a little over 2 lbs. On Sept. 16, 2003 my son acquired an infection and was put on the oscillator (a high pressure ventilator that keeps the airways open with 600 "puffs" of air a minute. What a horrific sight. He looked so uncomfortable. My husband and I stayed overnight that night and while taking a quick nap at 1:50am my husband woke up with a start...he had been dreaming of Sam and wanted to go check on him. He walked out the door and a nurse was coming down the hallway from the NICU...Sam was in full code. He died of severe sepsis at 2:10am that morning. It was gutwrenching. My experience of losing him is still fresh in my mind. I miss him so much. He was due this coming December 6th (my husbands 39th birthday). He will live forever in my heart.

We have the go ahead to try to conceive again in January 2004. I pray that this random experience will not happen again. I would love to hear of other moms that had an experience like mine. Please email me if you want.