After getting only a few hours of interrupted sleep. I woke up hoping it was all a dream. I could hear the i.v. swooshing next to my ear & the beeping down the hall. The lady next door had a constant heart rate monitor on. I heard her baby's heart beating all through the night. It was a terrible reminder that my baby could be dying inside of me. I was grateful that the constant flow of amniotic fluid had stopped but knew that the specialist would be in by noon to tell me where this might be headed. I assumed that it would not be good news. Jason headed home as his Mom had flown in the night before & he did not have much of a chance to get her settled. He was gone for a few hours and in between me dosing off I remember thinking that time had flown by.
The specialist arrived and confirmed our fears. He explained that usually women would give birth within 24 hours of their water breaking & that if it happened that our baby was too little to survive. He said it was possible that I would not give birth & that my body might hold off long enough for my baby to survive. This would require that I be on strict bed rest, only moving to use the restroom then to get back into bed. I did not care if I had to be hung upside down over a swamp full of alligators I would do whatever it took for as long as it took.
He explained that another complication would be that I could get an infection because due to the rupture there was an entrance to the womb where bacteria could form & if this were to happen that the only choice would be to deliver the baby even though he would be too little to survive. We talked about how I would know if I had an infection. He said I would run a fever or my stomach would get sore or I would begin to have contractions.
We asked if I were to go into labor before the baby could survive if they could use cesarean instead of me having to live with the memory or birthing a lifeless body. He said no, that it would also run a risk of infection & the healing time would be longer. Didn't he understand the healing time that my heart would endure if I had to push a baby from my womb never to hear him cry or see his eyes looking up at me! I somehow thought that knocking me out and surgically removing my precious baby would be less traumatic-who was I kidding? Either way I would have a lifelong amount of pain!
He wanted us to understand the risk involved even if we could make it to 25 weeks (I was currently 21 wks. & 3 days) He said our baby could be blind or deaf that he could have cerebral palsy or lifelong respiratory disease. He could be paralyzed. He could have to have several surgeries to repair his heart or his eyes. He would spend several months in the nicu and still there was a chance that he might not make it. He gave us a choice explaining in detail that he could insert a device into my vagina that would cause my cervix to begin to open and that he would administer pitocin to bring on contractions that we had a CHOICE a choice to play GOD! We could choose that today would be the day that we would give up on our miracle. With no hesitation we declared NO! We have God on our side & God will protect our son we stated that God would give him the exact life that he should have and that he had placed him with us knowing that we could handle it. We explained that if our baby did not make it that it would be because God chose that for him & not because we did. The Dr. did not seem surprised at our decision and stated that he hated to even give us that option but he wanted us be well informed.
We ended our talk with the Dr. with him explaining that all we could do was wait. He would send me home with antibiotics asking that I stay in bed. We would hope that I could wait it out to 25 weeks at which point I would come back to the hospital for around the clock monitoring. He said that he would deliver a 25 wk. old baby but that he preferred to deliver a 29 wk. old baby so the longer the better. We were hopeful but felt very vulnerable as there was nothing the Dr. could do-there was nothing we could-only God could provide what we needed!
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