Mum PPROM at 15 weeks with baby Harvey

Day 10 of Little Heartbeats international PPROM awareness month

Our Story of PPROM by

Beth & Ashley

started on the

19th March 2026

My wife was 15 weeks pregnant, she was booked in to get an amniocentesis carried out, after a student doctor preformed this on her who couldn’t get the needle into the uterus,

a specialist took over and carried out the procedure and managed to take 22ml of amniotic fluid. We were told chances of the waters breaking were 1/1000 women.

22nd March 26-

My wife’s waters broke at 15 weeks and 3 days.

23rd March 26

We had a phone call as the results came back that our beautiful baby was a boy and no result of Edward’s, Patu or Down Syndrome.

24th March 26-

Myself and my wife got told to go to hospital for a routine consultant appointment as soon as we could and it was “nothing to worry about”.

When we arrived, we were taken into a small staff kitchen on the department (PAU-pregnancy Assessment Unit) and said you need to concider a termination, “as the odds are against you”.

At this point, my wifes waters were 3.7cm (the least is 2.0)

The consultant explained how little water can stop the baby growing and its development.

Lungs won’t form properly and limbs can’t develop. She then continued to say “can your marriage take a disabled baby and can you Financial cope with one?”

We were completely struck, we couldn’t believe how a medical professional could say something so nonchalantly.

We completely understand they have to give all FACTS, but it wasn’t facts, it was her opinion.

She wasn’t even wanting to give our boy a chance. She gave us a 24 page print out on PPROM statistics from the North West.

Saying how “Amongst women who continued their pregnancy 44% had a baby that was born alive and only 18% had a baby that survived to hospital discharge without severe morbidity”

We were terrified and absolutely hysterical, to which we noticed on the back of the print out it had all the beautiful babies who sadly passed away and when they were delivered from PPROM.

We felt like we were being selfish for wanting to give our baby a chance, they made us feel like a termination was the only way, but it wasn’t. To our horror she explained that “if you’re lucky nature would take its course and the decision would be out of our hands”

I couldn’t find the words to explain the hopelessness and emptiness we felt.

We were completely heartbroken to hear this.

10 mins towards the end of the appointment our amazing midwife came into the appointment and sat with us.

When it was finished she took us to one side and said “do not have a termination, do NOT give up on this baby, give him a chance, you’ve got more than 2.0cm of fluid, keep going!”

When you’ve been told something like this from 2 medical professionals apart of you thinks well these are professionals they must be right, sometimes they AREN’T!

We kept going and my amazing wife gave birth to our beautiful baby boy Harvey at 37 weeks via emergency C section. He kept fighting because he belongs here with us.

I’m not saying all PPROM pregnancies are the same, I just wanted to share our story on what we went through after having an amniocentesis.

My wife spent nights upon nights searching for a positive story on PPROM after having an amniocentesis done and couldn’t find one.

She said even if she found at least one positive story, it would’ve gave her some hope in a hopeless time and not be left with the awful feeling of uncertainty throughout her pregnancy after the diagnoses of PPROM at 15 weeks and 3days.

I lost my wife to days and nights of constant worrying and the joy of her pregnancy being shattered because she couldn’t find any positives. Months of mental torture of wondering if something is to go wrong, months of giving ourselves a target to get to wondering if we will ever get to it, going to every scan hoping there is more than 2.0cm of fluid there to help our boy grow, having a CTG

EVERYDAY for the last 3 weeks of my wife’s pregnancy, having 30+ scans to check our baby is okay throughout the ENTIRE pregnancy.

So ladies, my advice to you is go with your gut, do what’s right for YOU and your family, most importantly, be kind to yourself and remember this isn’t your fault.

Take it day by day

and

Don’t feel guilty for enjoying your pregnancy🩵🩷