4.29.19
“In our last pregnancy, this is the day we learned our fate. It was the day my world spun out of control… I’m not stressed about having previa/abruption/PPROM again. It feels like I already drew the short stick there, but preterm labor? I’m terrified. Weeks 16-20 will be emotional, but weeks 30-36 will be terrifying. Going into labor could mean losing the baby and/or my ability to have future babies. Our family isn’t complete. I’m too young. I can’t have that taken away from me…“
It’s April 29 – did you think I forgot about this story? There just honestly were not any updates – things were going smoothly – but on April 29, we hit the invisible brick wall of 16 weeks. Physically, we had no reason to be scared. Emotionally, I knew this day would hit me hard.
For most women, 16 weeks is the sweet spot of a pregnancy. At 16 weeks, you’re usually past the morning sickness/exhaustion of the first trimester, but not quite into the phase where you feel like an injured whale. You’re excited to be out of the territory where so many miscarriages happen, and you get to start putting together a nursery. Your baby bump is just making its true appearance, but you can still wear a lot of your normal clothes. For most women, 16 weeks is beautiful.
In pregnancy #1 for me, 16 weeks was horrendously bloody. I thought, for sure, I had lost my baby, but instead learned that I had simply become the statistical minority – the friend of a friend – the person with placenta previa/abruption. Our fate was sealed on that day with that pregnancy.
But this one would be different.
And still, 16 weeks was hard.
Physically, I felt great. Emotionally, I began my trajectory of the many outlying emotions that would come with this pregnancy. We’d had one ultrasound and were anxiously awaiting the next one as the first didn’t tell us much other than that the baby was, indeed, in there and alive.
With our last pregnancy, we prayed for 40 weeks, then pleaded for even 34, and then craved just the 24 weeks that would give our baby viability status. With this one, I was already praying that God would just get it over with. Get us through the fear and unknown. Make it go fast. And, please, let there be a healthy baby at the end. I didn’t want to be in a perpetual state of waiting for something to go wrong.
It’s 16 weeks. I’m emotional. I’m anxious. And I’m in the middle of making the 342 calls with my doctor’s office/health insurance provider/specialty pharmacy to coordinate my Makena (hydroxyprogesterone caproate) Injections that will “lower the risk of having another preterm baby” because I just. Can’t. Do it. Again.
Things were fine. But I needed to know things were going to stay fine.
In the stats:
Gestational Age: 16 weeks
Doctor’s Appointments: 3
Ultrasounds: 1