At 3-days and18-weeks gestation, Sarah Goggin experienced a PROM ― and not the kind of event that teenage girls play out in their dreams. Rather, the 35-year-old expectant mother had a premature rupture of the membranes that were supposed to protect her unborn baby throughout her pregnancy.
When a mom-to-be’s water breaks at around 37 weeks, the outcome is delivery. If the membranes rupture earlier in her pregnancy, the result can be devastating. So when Sarah began to go into delivery at 18 weeks the protocol was strict bed rest at home, with the hope of getting her to 24-gestational weeks (when a fetus is viable ). Her obstetrician, Roxanne Pero, M.D. of Women’s Health Specialists of Dallas, and Brian Rinehart, M.D., a maternal-fetal medicine specialist with North Texas Perinatal Associates, then made the call for her to be admitted to the antepartum unit at the Margot Perot Center for Women and Infants at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. There, Sarah would remain on bed rest for an extra 10 weeks so that she could be closely monitored by medical staff dedicated to caring for high-risk obstetrical patients.
During her extensive stay in the hospital, Sarah relied on family and friends to help keep her mind busy and her sanity in check. She also leaned on the doctors and nurses of Perot 4 North for the support and needed resources to raise her spirits and help her remain positive.
“I learned to be very patient and to let go of the things I couldn’t control,” Sarah said. “I met so many wonderful people at Texas Health Dallas who were focused on keeping me calm and keeping my baby healthy. Everything the hospital had to offer was such a gift to help my baby get the growing time he needed.”
The Margot Perot Center is recognized as a “Best Place to Have a Baby,” in 2014 and 2015 by DallasChild magazine readers, and amenities like Paws Across Texas therapeutic dog visits and personalized concierge services and advanced medical resources are part of the reason why.
After 70 days in the hospital and 42 hours in labor, Tate Goggin Clair made his debut. He weighed in at a tiny 4 pounds and 7 ounces ― but he was a fighter. While Sarah’s stay at Texas Health Dallas finally came to an end, Tate’s was just beginning. He would spend 58 days in the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) under the watchful eye of a specialized medical team who came to refer to the newborn as “Tate, the Great.”
Upon his discharge, Tate had doubled in weight and required no special services. (Oxygen that had been prescribed was never needed.)
“This was harder than just about anything my partner and I could have imagined, but we know we got the best possible care at Texas Health Dallas,” Sarah said. “It’s hard to find words to express our gratitude for the doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, occupational therapists, chaplains and others who took care of us. We know how incredibly lucky we are.”