"Helping families and communities prevent and cope with infant and young child loss, one baby step at a time"

As we went into our ultrasound appointment at week 21 I had no worries at all! Things had been going great! The ultrasound tech was doing her job and at one point paused so she could go get the doctor. That is never good sign! The doctor comes in and tells us that I had lost my amniotic fluid. She scheduled us to see a specialist later that day. We visited with the specialist and did a more in depth ultrasound and they told us the same news as the first doctor, I only had very little amniotic fluid left. This was called pprom, preterm premature rupture of membranes. The doctor said I would probably go into labor within the next month. Thinking back to prior weeks I started leaking fluid at around 14 weeks. My ob doctor assured me that was normal and was never concerned. Since it broke so early we wouldn’t know until delivery if Mason’s lungs would be developed. The amniotic fluid is what helps develop the baby’s lungs.

 

Knowing that if Mason survived delivery he would probably need to be in the NICU we did some research and found that the University of Iowa Hospitals had a great NICU unit.  We visited with their doctors and came up with an admission plan. At 24 weeks we were admitted to UofI Hospital and our game plan was to monitor Mason each day by checking his heartbeat and hope we could make it to 34 weeks to then deliver via c-section due to Mason was breached and we knew he wouldn’t be able to turn without having fluid. Ryan and I prepared ourselves for a long stay away from home. His work was generous enough to let him work in Iowa City so he could stay with me. Mason’s heartbeat was great everytime we checked it. The doctor was looking for signs of distress and if he saw that happen I would have to go in for an emergency c-section. Our first 2 weeks were boring…but a good boring because nothing was changing with Mason’s heartbeat.

 

On November 7, 2013 at 2:30 am I woke up with lower stomach pain. I gave it some time before calling the nurse because I thought maybe I just needed to use the restroom but when it wasn’t going away I knew I needed to call the nurse. She hooked me up to the monitor to check Mason’s heartbeat and to also check to see if the monitor would pick up any contractions that I may have been having. And just like the last 2 weeks it was looking great! The doctor came in to see if I was dilated and I was not. So since everything looked great we continued on with our day. Ryan went back to Des Moines for a few hours and I rested all day. Throughout the day my pain continued and it was becoming more frequent. Ryan was on his way back to be with me and as he arrived the nurse was hooking me back up to the heart monitor. She was having a hard time getting a good read on it so she called the doctor in. Dr. Krupp arrived and said it’s go time and called the OR to prepare for a c-section. Just as the staff arrived to take me to the OR Dr. Krupp gave us the news that Mason’s heart had stopped. At 5:18 pm I delivered our sweet angel baby. He was born at 26 weeks gestation weighing 1 lb 12 oz and was 13 1/2 in long. Although Mason isn’t with us we think about him everyday!

 

Written by Mason’s mom, Amber Nemmers