two years old

Has your water broken?

Dum vita est, spes est
While there is life, there is hope.

The site I first found (and most women find) after rupture, kanalen.org/prom, is currently down.  BUT– I am so excited to announce they have a new site: inkan.se/prom. It’s such an amazing resource.  I am still glad you found my blog, though.  You can find a copy of kanalen.org/prom’s list of instructions to follow post-pprom here .  These instructions are essential if you have ruptured very early.

Above all, do NOT give up hope.  This is a terrible pregnancy complication, I know you are scared.  Despite what your doctor may tell you, there are babies born every day whose mothers ruptured as early as 12 weeks (some even earlier).  Many of these babies not only survive, but thrive.  As hopeless as your situation feels, you have every chance of bringing your baby home.  You are your baby’s champion, the one who will fight and never give up on them & they know this.

There are many channels of support available to you.

Feel free to email me:  brandy [at] superboyclark [dot] com

Other places to find support are:

The pPROM Facebook group

The BabyCenter pPROM Support Group

You can find studies about starting vitamins C & E post-rupture here.  The details about the vitamins and supplements I took are listed on this page.

If you have any questions or if I can help you in any way, please email me.

One Year After pPROM

We’ve been adjusting to life at home after Clark’s 75 day NICU stay. You can now follow us at:

www.superboyclark.com

Hi everyone.  I’m really sorry I haven’t been able to update lately.  Between the back and forth to the hospital, being there at scheduled times, pumping and having to sleep at some point…I’ve been slow at posting updates.

Clark will be 6 weeks old in two days.  He weight 3lbs 10oz and is 16.5″ long.  He’s been doing normal preemie things lately like desatting and having heart rate drops.  Thankfully, those have been more widely spaced over the past few days.

Since my last update, Clark has gone from the high frequency oscillating ventilator to the conventional vent to the cpap and now to the high flow nasal cannula.  He’s being slowly weaned on the pressure and hovers between 25-30% oxygen.  He started bottle feeding three days ago and has one bottle per day in addition to his regular gauvage feedings.  He’s not been able to drink much from the bottle (1-5ml) before having a heart rate drop, but I’m confident that he will get there.  He gets 16ml/feeding at present but that goes up by 1ml every 3 feedings.

Thank you all for keeping up with Clark’s progress and the prayers.  I know that many of you who read are in the same boat that we have been/are in.  This isn’t easy and it is scary but it’s possible.  I don’t have a ton of free time, but if you’re going through pPROM now and ever need anyone to talk to, please email me and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can: brandy.l.kelley@gmail.com.

Week 2: The Rollercoaster

So, everything everyone says about the NICU rollercoaster is true.  As of my last update, Clark was just trucking along.  Then, last week he got a big nasty infection caused by a gram-negative bacteria called pseudomonas.  “One of the worst bugs our there” according to his doctor.  The day after that, his PICC line malfunctioned and all of the fluids going into it leaked into the area around his lung sending his blood pressure and oxygenation into a tail spin.

The pseudomonas literally had him on the brink of life and death.  He was unresponsive for quite some time and having seizures.  Needless to say, I didn’t sleep or eat much last week.  They were able to drain the area around his lung and his oxygen saturation and blood pressure have greatly improved.  As of the last culture, there was no evidence of the pseudomonas, but he will continue antibiotic therapy for at least a couple weeks.

He became so swollen because they had to pump him full of fluids so his blood pressure would come up.   He is slowly eliminating those fluids, but it might take awhile.  We just got news that his new PICC line was placed, and he apparently tolerated the procedure well.  The biggest deal now is for him to be able to rest, not get any new infections, have a good PICC line…etc etc etc.

As I’ve been telling everyone in person, we need every prayer we can get.  This is a scary, bumpy ride.

Baby: Week 1

I want to thank everyone who is visiting my site.  The more information that is available for people experiencing pPROM, the better…so if you have a pPROM story to share or haven’t participated in the survey yet, be sure to stop by there and do that.

Clark is one week old today.  He’s off the nitric oxide, and the blood pressure medicines.  He’s getting his PICC line sometime today and another iv line to do blood draws from.  This all has me stressed out just because of the risk of infection.  He’s been breathing room level oxygen for a few days now and his ventilator settings have been dialed back.  It’s hard to see him working to take breaths on his own, it looks so uncomfortable..but I’m overjoyed that he has lungs and is able to do that.

A hard part about the NICU is getting to know and trust one nurse, then a couple days later she has her days off and might not be back again…and having to get to know another nurse.  It’s hard on stressed out parents.

Clark has lots of things done from day to day.  He’s flipped every 8 hours since he has limited mobility because of his ventilator.  Diaper changes and temperatures are a big deal to him, any stimulation isn’t good on such a tiny baby.  So far though, he’s been tolerating it pretty well.  He has numerous tests run daily.  And, he still hasn’t passed his meconium.  He might get to try a milk feeding soon…and hopefully that will stimulate his system and get things moving.

Overall, he’s doing well.  This week just has a lot of new things for him to get through.

I’m healing well from my c-section, except that I think I have a bladder infection.  The reason this really worries me is that I’ve been having the pain for quite some time now but I didn’t realize it was something other than my incision because I was on the pain medicine.  I’ll probably have to go back to the hospital tonight because I think I just started running a fever.

It’s been a long week, keep us in your prayers.

Baby is here!

This morning at 2am I started having contractions that were 8 minutes apart.  Over the next 4 hours they progressed to 1-3 minutes apart.  At that point, I called my nurse and she hooked me up to the nst.  I was indeed contracting, and my doctor came in to perform a sterile speculum exam.  The speculum exam didn’t really make it look like I was dilated so I stayed on the monitor for several more extreme contractions.  At that point, my doctor decided to do a manual exam.  She found I was dilated to a 5 and 100% effaced.  It was baby day.

At that point, I was transferred to a delivery suite and my iv was inserted.  I was in an enormous amount of pain so I requested fentanyl to take the edge off of my contractions.  The anesthesiologist came in and asked if I wanted an epidural and I told him I’d think about it, he then told me all the facts.  Over the next 2 1/2 hours, I had a dose and a half more of fentanyl and decided that I absolutely needed the epidural.  My contractions were right on top of each other and very intense.  My doctor agreed to ask the anesthesiologist for a walking epidural.  The relief it provided was absolutely amazing.  I can honestly, say that the medications do, indeed, lead to the domino effect.  However, I was prepared for any type of delivery and my mind was set that whatever happened was best for the baby.  I was not disappointed when they wheeled me away for an emergency c-section.

From the point of leaving the delivery suite until Clark was born was 3 minutes.  My medical team was extremely efficient. He was born and immediately whisked away to the resuscitation room.  When they oxygenated him, he turned pink and whimpered.  Once he was stabilized they brought him back to the OR and let me see him.  He was just absolutely beautiful.

He weighs 2lbs 8oz and is 14.5 inches long.  He’s currently in the NICU on the oscillating ventilator at 29% oxygen, which is amazing. The neonatologist said that he is surprising everyone and has lungs compatible with life.  That was the absolute best news of my day.

Thank you to all of you who have been praying for our precious little baby, God is certainly answering our prayers.  We are prepared for a possibly long and bumpy NICU ride, but we know with God’s blessing and strength that we will get through.

My Pregnancy: Week 29

There is nothing much to report this week.  It’s all the same routine  at the hospital and I’m pretty sure I’m a huge bore to my doctors and most of the nurses.  I can’t really argue with that.  I did have some more bleeding this week but no contractions, so far…thankfully.

Today was one of my mini-goals and my next one is February 1.  I find that having little goals gives me something to aim towards when my morale gets low.  I’ve had a couple times this week where I just wanted to go home.  Thankfully the sun came back out after two days of rain and dreary weather and I’m feeling much better.

Monday will be the start of week 4 here at the hospital.  In a way I can’t believe it’s been that long and on the other hand, it feels like I’ve been here forever.  The official countdown is going to start on Monday, too.  Four weeks until induction.  Wow.  As always, the one thing I can’t get off my mind is whether or not he’ll have good lungs.  I really can’t stress about that though, so I just pray..because in the end it’s not my decision anyway.

Bleeding and 1st Contractions

Yesterday afternoon around 4pm, I experienced some bleeding.  It was very concerning to me because I haven’t bled for at least 2 months.  I let my nurse know and she said it was likely cervical bleeding and not to worry, but to let her know if I had any other issues.  At about 11pm, I started having contractions, a couple hours later I decided to time them and they lasted about a minute and were, on average, 10 minutes apart.

By 3am I was exhausted and decided that I was done with that, told my body to relax and tried to sleep.  It worked.  The contractions stopped coming as often and definitely lessened in intensity.  At 6 when my nurse came in to hook me up to the nst I told her about the contractions.  She said that blood is an irritant and likely caused that.  There were two small contractions that registered on the nst, but it didn’t worry the doctor I was told.

At shift change, my favorite nurse came in and talked to me about my night.  She basically reassured me about everything I had already been told and also said that the contractions probably weren’t effecting my cervix.  However, this afternoon, I have started seeing signs of my mucus plug, which definitely means that there are some cervical changes going on.

I have yet to let the nurse know about the plug, but I have a feeling that I’m not too far away from labor.  I’ve only gotten out of bed today to eat, so that I can conserve most of my energy in case labor starts and also to not put pressure on my cervix.