By Defne-Kerim Paker, Istanbul TurkeyMy wife promed on the 20th week of her pregnancy. This was not the first problem during our 7 month long journey. She became pregnant on our second try of IVF. We had no apparent reason for not getting pregnant through natural ways. On the 6th week of the pregnancy she had massive bleeding. We rushed to the doctor and stayed in the hospital for few days. She had subchorionic hematoma doctors suggested she stayed home with minimal activity until the hematoma was gone. She ended up resting 6 weeks.
PROM at 20 weeksDelivery at 29 weeks + 5 days.
Story added: 2005-10-18
After her long resting period our doctor told us that she was free to do whatever she wanted to do as a regular pregnant woman. On the day that we finished 20th week she promed. She was brought to the hospital (I was out of town) and the doctors gave practically no chance but decided to wait one more night. Until the next morning she did not have any leakage. During u/s the next morning there was enough water for the babe to survive and we decided to wait another day.
A day turned to a week and a week turned to 9.5 weeks. She started to leak after two days of break and continued to leak until the last day of her pregnancy. She did not develop any infection until the last day. And the baby always had enough water to survive. Her AFI level never went below 9 and usually stayed between 11 and 16. She had contractions on 26+2 but was stopped and she had her steroid injection. During the last few days our little girl started to send us messages that she was about to come out. On 29+3 her contractions started again. The AFI level went down to 5 during the last day. And around 23:00 on 29+4 she gave signs of being in stress. Our little girl was born on 29+5 at 2:36 by an emergency c-section.
She was 1,188 gr. when she came out. She was able to breath on her own at first but in few minutes after she was born they had to put her on CPAP. She was helped by CPAP for the next few days and then by nasal canulla. She lost about 120 gr. during the next 4 days. After that moment almost everything was downhill. She started to gain weight, she did not develop any infection, and her breathing got better everyday. The only set back was on during her second week. She had anemia. Although it was an expected development considering her GA, we were very concerned for a day or two.
Our little daughter was discharged on the day the she finished her 34 weeks. We were expecting to stay at least few more weeks but it seems that she will do everything a little early then expected. We spent 4 days with her at our house and she is gaining weight with an extreme pace.
It was a very tiring, stressful and long process. We lost hope one day and then found a way to keep our spirit up the next day. The NICU process was relatively easy for us and we are grateful today that we have our daughter with us at home growing very fast.