Welcome to the World at 28 weeks

Marco Dante Berg joined the world on April 8th, 2021 - arriving 3 months early at 28 weeks gestation and weighing only 2 pounds 10 oz. I decided to keep this blog to help us remember his story, keep our amazing and supportive community updated and potentially help future parents of extreme preemies navigate the long, pothole-filled, road to home.

Our story started a little over 2 weeks ago on March 27th. 

(Note - I know very little about the medical side of what is happening with Marco - I speak to some stuff in here, but my understanding is limited.)

We had a great weekend - had my oldest son, L's, first baseball game, got my first dose of the COVID vaccine… then I started peeing myself. At 4pm Saturday I just started leaking - just enough to be embarrassed, but not enough to trigger any concern. The leaking continued all night, to the extent that I made my husband go buy me adult diapers. I figured I somehow lost my ability to hold my bladder and assumed it had something to do with the pregnancy - but I had a check up on Monday and figured I could wait until then to figure it out.

And then around midnight I stood up out of bed and gushed. My water broke. It wasn't pee, it was my freaking water breaking. At 26 weeks pregnant. It was by far one of the scariest and gut wrenching realizations. And honestly, it took me a while to come to the conclusion. It wasn't until I actually had to pee, and was able to hold it in fine and make it to the bathroom, that I realized it couldn't have been pee all day. Then the contractions started. At 2am, after waiting an hour to make sure they were consistent, I got up and drove myself to the hospital. I wanted my husband to stay with the kids, and I had my diaper on and the contractions were super mild, but god I was scared. 

When I got there, it took roughly 2 hours of a multitude of tests for them to confirm my water did indeed brake, and once it was confirmed, my heart shattered. I was admitted knowing I would be there until the baby was born - days, weeks or hopefully months away from my home, my kids and my life. (Due to COVID, my husband could visit, but not the kids)

I was given emergency meds: Magnesium to help the baby's brain development and limit the likelihood of Cerebral Palsy, a painful steroid to speed up lung development and antibiotics to ward off any infections (once your water breaks, all protection for the baby is gone and infection is extremely dangerous). They were prepped and ready for an immediate delivery as the first 24-48 hours were critical.

Luckily, my contractions stopped, I was moved to a long term room (the corner suite!) and I settled in for the long haul. I had so much hope, perhaps false hope, that we'd make it all the way. That I'd hold this little guy in until he was big and strong. It was a fluke, I told myself, there is no reason for my water to break so it must have just been a weird fluke and will not affect us at all. 

I continued life as (almost) usual. One good thing about COVID, it prepared me well for isolation and working remotely in a small room day in and day out. I had a regular schedule - woke up with a FaceTime breakfast with my boys, got to work, had meetings, dinner with the boys over the phone, a bit of TV/reading, bed. They monitored us every 8 hours, to check Marco's heartbeat and make sure I wasn't having contractions - aside from that, life went on. For two weeks.

The average time a mom can stay pregnant with PPROM (Preterm Premature Rupture of Membranes) is 8-10 days. We passed that key milestone and, again, I thought we were going all the way. "All the way" for this situation, by the way, is only 34 weeks. That is the point where it is more risky to keep the baby in then take him out. But no such luck.

On day 11 I started getting night-time contractions. Mild cramping. No one seemed too concerned (except me). Day 12 more night time contractions. Day 13 slightly more painful nighttime contractions, but still considered mild, plus regular mild contractions all day. Again - no one seemed worried because they were mild. I joked with the doc, had a somewhat normal day and went to bed nervous. Then pain hit. After everyone telling me it was nothing to worry about, I held my tongue for awhile. Maybe I was making too big a deal of this. I could make it to the morning, when hopefully the contractions would lessen.

Around 1am I started crying and finally asked for Tylenol to take the edge off. In came the docs to check on me because pain meds = a warning that things could be taking a turn. They checked my cervix - closed! With relief I figured I must not have a high tolerance for pain and supposed it was nothing after all. But it kept going. And then they started coming every 5 minutes. And I would cry through them then dread the next round. Thankfully they were monitoring me, because they realized the contractions were getting more frequent and came in to check again. 2cm dilated. Time was up. My baby was coming at one day shy of 28 weeks. My heart broke, again.

Enter the next round of emergency meds – more Magnesium, more steroid, more antibiotics. I called the hubby, and they hustled me over to labor and delivery.

3pm on April 8^th I coughed and Marco came sailing out into the world. Literally. The doc came in to check my progress, said “Ok, let’s see how far we… oh. That’s a head. Ok, don’t sneeze.” He quickly called in the NICU team and within 5 minutes my room was swarming with people. Thank goodness they got there quickly, because the next contraction came, I breathed in and out, and Marco was there. Easy as pie. Coming from a mom who spent 3 hours pushing her first kid out, this was a dream… except for the fact that it was a surreal nightmare.

We were lucky – Marco was larger than expected, cried a bit (which may not have happened at this age gestation), and was breathing relatively well. As I had no need for stiches, they sat me up and we got to watch the NICU doctors do their thing. They intubated him, did a whole bunch of other stuff, and then whisked him away. That was it. No picture opportunity, no skin to skin, no bonding moment. Again, having gone through this two times before, it was just so wrong to not get to do these normal bonding activities with my newborn. He shouldn’t even have been here yet, and now I didn’t get to hold him. I saw Marco for a total of 15 minutes that day – much later – after they had the chance to get his IVs placed in his umbilical cord.

I stayed one night on the maternity floor. Listened to other moms with their babies. Wished I was home with my family. Thankfully, I was discharged the next day and our new normal began.