By Mandy Walters, Cabot, AR USAMy husband and I found out I was pregnant over Thanksgiving 2004. Although it was an unplanned pregnancy and my husband was preparing to deploy to Iraq, we were very excited.
PROM at 20 weeks + 5 days. Delivery at 30 weeks + 3 days.
Story added: 2005-07-18
Between weeks 6 and 16 I had some issues with bleeding. Several times the bleeding was so severe and accompanied with clots that I was convinced I was having a miscarriage. My OB discovered a polyp on my cervix that she believed was causing the bleeding and removed it. Unfortunately, it did not stop the bleeding. At around week 16, the bleeding resolved itself.
On the night of March 16, 2005, I was preparing a test for my students (I was in the middle of my student teaching) when I felt a gush. This gush felt like my previous bleeding episodes, but when I went to the bathroom there was a clear fluid instead of blood. I called the doctor on call who instructed me to go to L&D to be checked, but told me it was probably nothing to be worried about.
After arriving at L&D I was instructed to change into a gown. As I did so, the nurse did a strip test on my underwear, which had fluid on them, and the fluid was indeed amniotic fluid. She tried to hook me up to the monitors, but the baby was too little to pick up a consistent heart rate. Once she conveyed to me how serious the condition was, she began the process of getting a message to my husband, who by this time was already in Iraq.
The next morning, I was sent to radiology for an ultrasound that would determine how much fluid I had left. The u/s tech let me know I had 4 centimeters of fluid; a regular pregnancy has about 11.
Throughout the next 10 weeks that I was hospitalized, I was given weekly ultrasounds to check the baby's growth and the fluid level. At one point, the fluid reaccumulated to 10 centimeters. Needless to say, I was very excited! Unfortunately, at week 27 my water "broke" again and my fluid level returned to very low numbers. However, I never went into labor or developed an infection, which impressed my doctors. At my first visit with the perinatologist, he informed me that I had an 80% chance of going into labor within a week of my water breaking. Obviously, I was lucky enough to fall into the 20% that don't.
When I was 30 weeks, 2 days, I began to bleed and have some very mild contractions about 8 minutes apart. I was moved from my room in the high risk ward to L&D to be monitored overnight. The OB on call was intent on not delievering me, but when my OB got into work the next morning she decided that we should go ahead with a c-section.
Spencer was born at 9:48 am on May 23, 2005. He weighed 2 lbs. 14 ozs. and was 15 inches long. I was thrilled to hear him cry when he was born.
He stayed on a vent for 6 days (first an oscilator, then a conventional vent). He was then put on the nasal cannula.
When he was 6 days old, the doctors thought he had developed NEC and he was transfered to another hospital for surgery. Fortunately, it was simply a hole in his stomach that had been caused by his feeding tube and was stitched up without much further complication.
He was released to come home after 43 days in the NICU. He weighed 4 lbs. 5.5 ozs at the time of his release and came home with no monitors. I am convinced that he would have been home sooner had it not been for his surgery.
It was a rough journey, but I got a beautiful and healthy baby boy out of it. I thank God everyday that Spencer made it through 10 weeks of low fluid without compromising his lung function too severly.
Keep hoping and praying and feel free to contact me at any time.
Mandy
Mom to Spencer, born 5/23/05 @ 30 weeks due to PPROM