Ethan

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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

A fork in the road

I know I haven't blogged in forever but now is a new twist in our journey.

In July, I found out that I was pregnant with our second child. Miracle of all miracles! We wanted two children and now with Ethan getting ready to turn two, we figured we were ready again. We were still signed up for the adoption in case we could not get pregnant again. This is a true miracle that it happened twice! I had the usual pregnancy symptoms or the same ones I had with Ethan. Indigestion, nausea, fatigue, you know how that all goes.

On October 12, 15 weeks into the pregnancy, one of the worst possible things happened. My water broke. The medical term for what happened is preterm premature rupture of membranes or pPROM. It happened at 6:00 on a Tuesday morning while I was asleep. No symptoms, no warnings, just leaking almost all of the amniotic fluid. Frantically I called the doctor who told me to come in as soon as the office opened. The grim look on his face told us everything we already dreaded. He said that the baby was still alive but most likely in the next couple of days, I would go into labor and miscarry. We were devastated. My OB also called down the hall to an OB high risk specialist who agreed to see me right away. While in his office, he did two more ultrasounds and told me that if I heeded to strict bed rest, there was a chance that the baby may live to prematurity. Which means that as soon as they think the baby can live on her own, they will do a c-section and she will live outside the womb until she is ready to function on her own outside the NICU. Yes, we also found out that the baby is more than likely a girl.

So to make a long story short I have made it two more weeks on bed rest, and our little girl has hung in there right along with me. There is still some fluid but not a lot. There is enough for the baby to swallow and filter through her kidneys. These things are both crucial for the survival of our baby. And, we have hundreds of people praying for us. That is what helps the most. I have found a great support group online for women who have the exact same condition that I do. I guess you call it a condition. I have done more research on PROM than I ever imagined since I have never heard of it before. You see, it only happens in 1-2% of all pregnancies. So unfortunately, I am unusual. Maybe I should have bought a lottery ticket that day too. Seems like my chances of hitting the lottery would have been better than this.

There are many things that can go even more wrong down the road but we are praying for nothing short of a miracle in this pregnancy. After all, Ethan was a miracle so I believe in miracles. So for now, everything is stable and we just take one day at a time.

Until next time...

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