Leaking Fluid During Pregnancy: Another Scare at 18 Weeks

By Erica Kain

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Last Sunday, at 18 weeks pregnant, I showed up to my hospital’s Labor and Delivery Department.
The women in the cubicles around me were hugely pregnant, moaning with contractions as they prepared to deliver and hold their new babies. I, on the other hand, was paralyzed by terror. The doctor had told me that he felt pretty sure my amniotic sac was leaking, and that my fetus and I were suffering from a preterm premature rupture of membranes (pPROM).
A fetus at 18 weeks is nowhere near viable outside the womb, and a broken sac would mean a miscarriage. The nurse was grim faced as she ordered the tests on the leaking fluid. “This doesn’t look good,” she said.
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