PPROM suspected at 15wks confirmed at 18wks

My name is Kim and my wife's name is Paige. I'm an ER nurse and she's a financial accountant. We've been together for four years and just had an amazing baby.

My wife and I started IUI in March of 2020 and became pregnant November of the same year. I started bleeding pretty consistently by week 7. Our fertility doctor saw bleeding under baby Beye's placenta. Usually this is fairly inconspicuous and occurs often, but our journey quickly went from this is "normal" to this is 100% wrong.

I was officially diagnosed with PPROM at week 18 by a physician that told us our very wanted baby should be terminated due to this condition.

At week 15, I woke up to two large gushes of bloody fluid. My wife and I went to our local emergency room and the ultrasound, that day, showed an appropriate level of fluid (AFI) and that everything else seemed to be okay. We were sent home and were to follow up the next week with our OB but it snowed and we were only able to have a telemedicine appointment via phone. My OB continued to tell me: “some women just bleed” throughout the entire time even though I knew something wasn't right.

We went to an outside gender sonographer at week 17. She noted an AFI of 5 and called our OB to inform her of what she saw, even though we were only there to find baby’s gender. We weren’t able to see our OB for yet another week and we wouldn't know baby Beye's confirmed gender till week 26.

At week 18, I had another gush of fluid that appeared the same as before. I believe this was when we lost our total amount of fluid. We went to our OB later that afternoon for a scheduled appointment. She sent us down for an anatomy scan that day. We were suppose to leave after and would be called with results but their sonographer encouraged us to go back upstairs to the clinic to wait on the results. After what seemed like hours of waiting, our OB told us that we had an AFI level of 1. She made a high risk appointment for us the following day. She didn’t do much to encourage us or much to comfort us. She made us feel hopeless.

The following day we had another anatomy scan with a local high risk physician. After hours waiting, alone - because of COVID, they let my wife come upstairs and gave us our PPROM diagnosis. He presented us with the option of only termination. He did tell us that we could continue but made it seem like I was likely to die from infection before baby would reach viability. I know they have to tell us these risk but he made it seem like there were zero options. We initially agreed to terminate. However, our hospital - because of where we live - had to convey an ethics committee in order to approve our termination. Although, this seemed extremely cruel to us, it gave us an entire weekend to get a second opinion.

We met with a different high risk doctor just before hitting week 19. This new hospital, where this physician works, is a level 1 trauma center, 3b NICU (with access to a level 4 NICU), and the best hospital in our state. At this appointment we met with someone that would flip our world upside down. This new doctor told us that it is possible to carry our baby almost to term and that while I do have an increased risk of infection there were other interventions to prevent it from happening. He gave us a stern lecture on how hard the journey would be and that even after baby is born, there’s no guarantees but that they would do everything they could to make this baby happen! We never looked back to our old OB again - in fact, we never spoke to her after that day.

Through week 18 till week 25 we would travel 3 hours from home to UAMS for weekly appointments. At home, I was on totally bed rest including laying flat for as much as possible. It was miserable. At week 25 we rented a month long Airbnb close to our hospital due to additional bleeding. We bounced the idea with our doctor for admission and what would be best. At week 28, I went inpatient for bedrest and monitoring. Somehow, we made it to week 33 before there were any other problems.

In total I was on bedrest for 98 days with 37 of those days being in the hospital. I can't imagine a worse time to bed on bedrest than when you're pregnant and already miserable. It was completely awful, but I would do it all over again for the outcome that we had or even if it had turned out different. Just knowing that we did all that we could do made a big difference in our overall mental health. We did not want to end this pregnancy.

On June 16th at 0246 AM, Liam and my body decided we were through with pregnancy. On June 14th I begin to feel chills, and started having changes in my fluid loss. I also was just feeling “not right.” On vaginal exam it was apparent that something had changed so the doctors began Liam’s induction that night. Baby boy was born the following morning and was immediately crying - a miracle in itself. I was able to hold him on my stomach for maybe 10 seconds before he went with the baby doctors. He weighed 4lbs 13 oz and was 17 inches long. He started out on CPAP but quickly needed a breathing tube for better support. He was on an oscillating ventilator in the NICU for several days after a failed attempt at taking out his breathing tube. I've been in many different emergency situations requiring putting in breathing tubes - even on other peoples babies, but seeing my baby turn blue was a whole different level of shock.

Liam came home after 44 days in the NICU on oxygen and thickened milk. After 6 months we’re, somehow, oxygen free and drinking regular milk too! He’s out little miracle in the horror that is PPROM.

Kim Beye

We asked Kim....

Question: Why did you progress your pregnancy after PPROM?

We decided to continue because 1 doctor out of 3 said it was possible. We tried hard to make this little baby and we never wanted to give up on him.

How did you find Little Heartbeats?

I did come across your website at about 3am one morning. I remember crying, just knowing that others had gone through this rare condition too. I think that reading all of the stories of goof and bad outcomes is what got me through it all.

What is your advice to others going through this?

Advice is hard. I think the biggest thing to know/remember is that it’s completely out of our control and not our fault. It just an out of body thing that just kinda happens. Nothing we did or could do would have make a difference. I think the mom guilt and feeling like your body has failed you was really hard.