scandinavian demon

I wanted to title this post "Scandinavian Demon" because at our previous ultrasound with the Perinatologist he made a joke about how one of the images of the baby looked vaguely demonic.  We laughed and made a reply something to the effect that our two bloodlines never should have crossed. Maybe this would have offended some but it just made us like him that much more.  Having a doctor with a sense of humor is nice, at least from our perspective.

This past Tuesday was our last visit with him.  From the beginning of this pregnancy his goal -aside from the ultimate one of helping us have a living baby- was to get us into the third trimester.  Had George been but a few weeks older, say 28 or 29 weeks, when his condition first started they would have just delivered him and ablated his heart immediately when it became evident after the first few days that the medications weren't working.  The long-standing hydrops would not have had the time to rob him of any real chance at living a normal life.  Who knows, maybe we would have a fourteen month old baby right now and I would be blogging about first steps instead of this.

Well, we are hovering on the cusp of the third trimester at this point.  On Tuesday I will be twenty-eight weeks.  According to March of Dimes if for some reason I delivered this baby right now there would be a 96% chance of survival.  An impressive number (and one I am truthfully dubious about) but statistics are a joke- just a way to soothe ourselves into believing that we will be exempt from the bad things that happen.

Still, after speaking at length with my therapist on the subject, I am doing my best not to live in the future where I have to say goodbye to another baby.  Tonight, as I am writing this, I am mother to a dead son but also mother to a daughter and right now, at this very minute, she is alive.