Four year ago today (Sept 1, 2015) we were blessed with finding out I was pregnant with baby number two. As fast as the years have gone, I still look back from time to time on that eventful season in our life – maybe even one of the scariest.
From thinking we were having a miscarriage at around week eight to having my waters break at 24 weeks; followed with five + weeks on hospital bed rest and wrapping it up with meeting our little miracle baby, Molly Mae, at 34 weeks. She sure wanted to make that time in my belly eventful – for ALL of us.
We truly were blessed with the outcome of her arrival at 34 weeks though, especially with her hanging out in the belly for a few weeks with minimal fluid (PPROM pregnancy). Preterm premature rupture of the membranes (PPROM) is a pregnancy complication. In this condition, the sac (amniotic membrane) surrounding your baby breaks (ruptures) before week 37 of pregnancy.
Today she is our spunky, strong willed 3 year old. God truly is amazing and has his hands on everything.
Let’s take it back to week eight. We were eating supper as a family when all of a sudden I jumped up because it felt like I was peeing my pants. Looking into my seat I found a lot of blood and my pants were covered in blood as well. I thought to myself, can’t the first trimester ALL DAY SICKNESS be enough. Ugh!
I ran to the bathroom and sat on the toilet with blood still flowing. At this point, the only thought in my mind was miscarriage. We called the doctor line and my OBGYN doctor happened to be on-call. He also agreed that it sounded like I had miscarried and could come in tonight to the ER or make an appointment for an ultrasound in the morning.
I had this calming feeling come over me and I said I’d call in the morning to schedule an ultrasound. As he said if we went into the ER, there would be nothing the doctors could do. That morning I was able to get right in and took off for the clinic. The tech got to work and she instantly found a heartbeat. Was that ever a relief, however, she didn’t give me much more info than that, except to expect the doctor to send the info to My Chart within 48 hours.
Thank goodness my doctor is amazing, he called me soon after to let me know that I had a subchorionic hematoma. One was the size of a tennis ball. No wonder I was experiencing a lot of blood and kept bleeding until around week 20. There was no clear answer to why this was happening, but Sven and I were staying positive while accepting the “could be” of the future.
At my 24 week appointment, my doctor mentioned that some pregnancies that experience bleeding also encounter an early rupture. That appointment was in the morning – guess what happened that evening – PPROM. After that I told my doctor to stop telling me what could happen. ha!
My mom came to watch Owen that night because I had a big training event for the next couple of days at work. Sven was also involved and we’d be working long hours (more than our daycare would cover). Sven was still at work and I greeted my mom at the door with my pants wet and asked her if this was normal. ha! Does anyone else feel like every time you asked your doctor/nurse if something was normal during pregnancy they said yes. It’s almost as if you want to stop asking questions. Please don’t though.
Anyway… being in denial – I brushed it off and thought it was just a little leakage. I don’t know why, when I had to keep changing a pad throughout the night. I woke up really early and headed for work. At around 6am, I was printing some materials for the training event when I experienced another large gush of fluid. It was time to leave a message with the doctor line. A nurse called me back that A.M. and I explained what I was experiencing.
She told me NOT to head to my local hospital where we planned on having baby number two – instead head right for The Mother Baby Center. I had to interrupt Sven as he was presenting for the same training event I was coordinating. He didn’t mind though – as he doesn’t like speaking in front of large crowds. Right after telling him, we were on our way.
They did a swab to confirm if I had PPROM or not. It came back as I did and they were on their way to checking me in. I remember asking our nurse Molly if I’d be staying overnight. She looked at me and said you’ll be staying here until that baby comes and let’s hope that’s 10 weeks from now. WOW! I wasn’t expecting to hear that.
Dr. William Wagner came in to see me after they had already started the corticosteroids and tocolytic medicines. I don’t remember which one it was, but I instantly needed a puke bag. That was tough! Dr. Wagner walked through the next 48 hours, as the odds were high that I would deliver within that time frame.
We made it! We made it past the 48 hours. Now we just had to make it 10 more weeks on hospital bed rest. Easy, peasy, right!
Let’s just say I binge watched A LOT on Netflix. Looking back I probably could have used my time a little more wisely, yet I kept telling myself life with NEVER be this slow. The weeks I spent in the hospital were hard on Sven I’m sure. My parents were very helpful and took Owen from time to time, but it was Sven who had to step up and do dual roles for awhile.
The first couple of weeks I was on strict bed rest and could only leave to grab water and use the restroom. Then I was able to leave my room for periods of time. I had some really nice nurses and a few of them would take me on wheelchair rides outside to get fresh air. We had a craft day as well.
Okay… I’ll stop with all the boring details of the hospital bed rest days. ha! I had a countdown on my bathroom wall in my hospital room. It was a 10 week countdown – 34 weeks pregnant. I switched phones and forgot to back up my pictures from that season of life. I’m sad about that now as I hardly have any pregnant pictures, but I used to take a weekly pictures of me and the belly by that countdown.
Once I reached 29.5 weeks I stopped leaking fluid. The fluid was also building back up as they did routine ultrasounds to track it. The doctors were happy to see that. So much that they discharged me. No more bed rest!
That meant it was time to head back to work too, after being on short term disability while in the hospital. I was right, time has NEVER been slower than the time I spent in the hospital. Life returned to pregnancy normal and it was busy.
Thirty four weeks arrived and we were all so thankful our little baby was still inside. That night though – my water broke again and we were off to the hospital. This time I knew it was the real deal and they wouldn’t try to stop labor. We arrived at our local hospital, as they deliver after 34 weeks – we made it. By a day as it was 2am at this time.
By 5pm, Molly Mae was put into my arms.
Love my family of four!
If you are currently going through this, feel free to reach out. I know how nice it is to talk to someone who has experienced the same thing – or similar events.
I promise I’ll do another post in the future on Molly’s (and Owen’s) delivery, for now, we’ll keep this one to PPROM.
