One Day At a Time

Another week of PPROM, almost 25 weeks now. On the one hand, I’m breathing a little easier. On the other hand…

“At 25 weeks, we sometimes counsel not to resuscitate.”
“At 25 weeks, your chances of bringing home an intact child are less than 50%”
“A 25-week preemie can spend up to one year in the NICU.”
“The following factors can adversely impact the survival rate – multiples, uterine leaking.”
“Survival rates improve every day but the rate of brain injury doesn’t go down significantly until after 28 weeks.”

I like the approach where I am, which is very much about involving parents in all decision-making. “We will go on this journey together.” But sometimes I just don’t want the information. I can’t tour the NICU right now. Maybe in another week or so.

Now that I have reached the magical 24-week threshold I have a nurse who comes to monitor me every day. They tell me they see the pre-term labour people three times a week, but us PPROMers get a daily visit. I have a homework chart and I graph my temperatures. They listen to the babies every day. Every other day I get a non-stress test and spend 20 minutes watching the babies heartbeats rise up and down, watching for the appropriate accelerations when they move.

I wouldn’t say the rupture is getting better – I hoped it would, and that it would just heal up after a couple of weeks of rest. That hasn’t happened, and sometimes it seems worse. But they stay there still enough fluid around little Baby Girl B, so thus far it’s regenerating faster than I’m losing it.