Viability

With every pregnancy I have breathed a little easier when we have reached the point of viability, which is typically considered 24 weeks (there are babies who make it before then, but 24 weeks is when the baby has a 50% chance of survival or more). It is always a huge relief to make it to this point because I know that if something awful were to happen, my baby would have a fighting chance.

This time, I have waited rather impatiently for this day to come. As I have brefly talked about in a previous blog, we experienced some complications at the beginning that put my baby at a higher risk of not making it. I have what is called a subchoriatic hemorrhage. This is actually a fairly common thing, and I even remember being told in a dating ultrasound I believe with Ruth that I had a small one. That one resolved and never caused a single issue, which is the most common outcome.

With this pregnancy, I started bleeding. The part that made it the hardest is this bleeding started about an hour after we told our kids (at the Thanksgiving dinner table) that we were going to have another baby. The bleeding was very heavy, and then the cramping started. We were sure we had lost our baby we so desperately wanted. We spent that whole weekend convinced she was gone, then I went to the ER Sunday night because I couldn't take it. The doctor found her on the ultrasound, her little heart beating. I was elated, but that was not the end of the roller coaster. 

We spent the next two weeks in and out of appointments and hospitals, one day it was good news, the next it was bad or suspected to be bad. The bleeding finally stopped after a couple of weeks, and I was relieved until it started again. For me, it never completely stopped. It has continued to come and go, and each time I stress a little more because I'm at an elevated risk of my placenta detaching.

So, here we are at viability. I can finally breath a little easier. I still want our sweet little girl to stay right where she is for at least another 13 weeks (although if she follows the trend of the others it will be more like 16.5), but it is a huge weight off my shoulders to know that if the worst were to happen, she would have a fighting chance.