Pop!...Goes the Baby?!

Imagine this. You find an amazing partner, get married, and barely three months into your new marriage, you find out your family will be growing much sooner than planned. As someone who loves children, and has played "child whisperer" to all children before your own, you are eagerly anticipating the arrival of your new baby. Despite the morning sickness, insomnia, and other woes one might experience, you are basking in the joy that comes with building a baby. Everything is going fine, until exactly halfway through your pregnancy, all of the visions, dreams, and plans you have for your new baby begin to slow down...because your water breaks.

This is exactly what happened to me eight years ago, before I welcomed my first child into the world. I married my husband in July 2014. We had plans for me to finish school, travel a bit, begin to figure out our lives together, and decide when we wanted to start adding to our family. In October 2014, I found out I was pregnant. Definitely not what we planned, but we obviously did not take the right precautions to make our plans fare otherwise. I was enjoying the journey of baking a little human, despite the fact that I battled sickness much longer than the first trimester. It was March 2015 and I had just made it to 20 weeks. I had only been feeling the little butterfly flutters, we look forward to, for a couple of weeks. The kicks had just begun to feel more like a throbbing heartbeat in my stomach. We had an upcoming appointment to find out the sex of our child. We were eager to find out whether we would be blessed with a precious little girl, or grant our oldest son's wishes with a baby boy. Then, everything changed.

I had come home from a long day of school. Like many of us mommies during pregnancy, the bathroom was my second home. After putting down my bags, I immediately went to greet my friend, with which I had a love/hate relationship at this point, the toilet. I settled into the seat and tried my best to relieve myself after the long drive home. I felt a big gas bubble which I needed to pass, or so I thought. I patiently waited until my body adjusted and released the knot of gas I felt, but what happened next was not what I expected. I heard a big "POP!" Finally, I was relieved! Oddly though, my urine stream didn't seem to stop. I thought to myself, "gosh, I must've drunk a lot of water today." However, internally I could feel that something was off. This felt far less normal than an ordinary secretion. I immediately called my husband upstairs and told him something was wrong. We both had an idea of what was happening, but there was no way it could be what we thought, right? I was only 20 weeks into my pregnancy, was that even possible? He gathered up clothing, I put a pad in my underwear, and we were off to the hospital which was luckily only about three minutes away.

When we arrived at the hospital, we were triaged and given a space in the emergency room. Keep in mind, we advised the receptionist, nurses, techs, whomever we spoke to of what was going on. We stressed how what I was experiencing was not normal, how I had literal fluid leaking from my body, and I was only 20 weeks pregnant. We waited a long while (too long) before seeing a doctor. It was only at my husband's urgent request for a sanitary pad due to me bleeding (I was not at that time) that a doctor came over. After telling the doctor what was going on, she examined me and advised me that my water had broken. She informed me that I was likely having a miscarriage. What a gut punch, but I did not cry, I did not show emotion. I received her information, but I knew different. The next step was to be transported to the maternity ward...at a different hospital. Can you imagine waiting all that time in the ER, only to be told you have to go to a DIFFERENT hospital to either have your baby or properly be evaluated? As irritated as I was, I did not have time for frustration, worry, or more stress. I knew I had to stay calm for my baby, and so I did.

I was loaded into an ambulance. As we whirred down the highway to the appropriate hospital with a maternity ward, I had to remain calm. I could not cry. I could not think of the worst. I could not further stress myself with the unknown of what our future held. I could only breathe. I rubbed my belly and spoke life into my baby the whole way. We communicated as only Mommy and baby could. I would tell baby that everything was going to be okay and to let me know they could hear me. As a response, I'd feel kicks of reassurance. I prayed for my husband and myself to be equipped with strength to deal with whatever lied ahead for us. Most importantly, I prayed I would meet this baby, alive, and get to feel those kicks in real life. Still, I did not cry, nor waiver in the faith I had that I would meet this baby and enjoy a long life ahead with them.

We finally reached the second hospital after about a 20 minute ride. I saw an array of doctors and nurses. Naturally, I had what felt like a million tests run. I was poked for blood, prodded for pain, probed for baby's position and my uterine health. Talk about exhausting. Per the reports, baby had a healthy heartbeat and was not distressed, all of my tests were normal, except my cervix had shortened. What did that mean, how did it happen? It meant I had a preterm premature rupture of the membrane (PPROM). Laymen's terms, my water broke before 37 weeks and left me with a leak in my amniotic sac. Unfortunately, we never received an explanation on "why" this happened. Outside of the shortening of my cervix, there was nothing that the doctors could see or had knowledge of that could explain why my body was trying to expel my baby. After an overnight stay of constant monitoring and concluding there was no more leaking for the time being, I was released and ordered bedrest until giving birth.

Before going home, I was informed that I was to stay on bedrest at home at least until 30 weeks, then I would return to the hospital for further monitoring. I was told that there was nothing they could do to successfully help my baby if I went into labor before 24 weeks. I was told that if I made it to 32 weeks (or somewhere around there), I would be induced. Oh, what fun. The thought of bedrest was impeding because I was still in school, but I had to do what was best for myself and my baby. I was so overwhelmed, but all I could muster was smiles, positive thoughts, and plenty of prayers. I mean, what else was there to do? I was now stuck on bedrest, which was very humbling for someone as active as me, at the time. While I was not excited about lying in a bed or on a couch all day, I was beyond thankful that I was not giving birth at 20 weeks, nor was I losing my baby. So, back to the house we tread, and I stayed confined to the bed. That is, until my baby decided it was time to meet Mommy and Daddy.