10/23/03

5 years ago tonight, my world started crashing. I remember so clearly our last hour of innocence. R and I were laying in bed, me on my side with his arms wrapped around my body and his hands lightly touching my belly, feeling Hannah, Ryan and Abby's kicks and bumps. We were talking, dreaming, about our life to come. We were excited. We were having triplets.

R turned off the light around 11:00 p.m. and was lightly snoring about 1/2 hour later until my panicked voice called to him from the bathroom: "R, call the OB. My water just broke" Although I had never experienced PROM before, I knew with great clarity that this is what had just happened. R was groggy and moving slowly and I felt so angry with him that he wasn't taking faster action. Later, he appologized for this because at the time, he didn't think my water had broken~it was just too soon for something like that to happen.

When we were in the car R kept asking me if it was a slow leak. We were both hoping, praying that it was, even though I knew it was a full rupture. There was just too much fluid. On the ride, I felt another big gush of warmth run down my leg and I was scared, but I had never had a baby before so I didn't understand the full magnitude of what this meant.

We were rushed up to L&D and the resident on call did an ultrasound. One of the babies had very little amniotic fluid. I remember asking if she could tell the gender and when she said "boy" I was devastated. Ryan. My baby boy.

And yet, there was amniotic fluid, which is always replenishing itself, so there was hope. I was told we would know more in the morning, when the perinatologist could come see me. That night, R slept on a lounge chair and I slept on my side, in trandelenberg position. I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure the Doctor gave me a sleeping pill because even though I didn't sleep well, I did sleep.

It would be the last time that week that I slept.

I still didn't understand that this was the beginning of the end.