“It was my first pregnancy, so I didn’t really know what to expect. One night, when I was at just 30 weeks, it suddenly felt like I’d peed myself. I remember thinking, yeah, that’s probably normal.
It wasn’t normal.
I don’t usually get to be thankful I’m diabetic, but this time it was lucky for me. Because of my type 1 diabetes, I was going in for ultrasounds more frequently. At my next ultrasound, just a couple of days later, the tech suddenly got this concerned look on her face and then ran to get the OB. They wanted to know if my water had broken.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘So that’s what that was.’
A week later, on April 1, Ari was born two months premature. He had this incredible mane of wild black hair like a lion. Ari weighed all of three pounds one ounce, and I think half of that was hair.
“One thing I’ve learned is that when a woman experiences preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM), rarely can anyone ever tell her why.”
You can’t nurse a baby when they’re that small. They took him straight to the NICU, handed me a breast pump, and told me that pump was going to be my new best friend. I was fortunate that the milk was instantly there and pumping came pretty naturally to me. I became obsessive about the pumping because it was something I could do to help at a time when it was easy to feel powerless.
I remember asking everyone why this had happened, why he had been born so premature. But one thing I’ve learned is that when a woman experiences preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM), rarely can anyone ever tell her why. It’s just one of those things that happens.
It’s a super scary thing to go through and, in both of my next two pregnancies, I was so worried about it happening again. As it happened, though, both those pregnancies ended up being induced because they were going past term. It’s a funny world.
Ari is 11 years old now, and though he’s still small, he’s physically and developmentally thriving. We’ve been fortunate that none of the bad outcomes we were warned about seem to have happened. He’s probably the easiest of our three kids and he’s a great big brother. He loves to joke that he played a great April Fool’s prank on me by coming out two months early.”
.jpg)
