22 weeks and terrified

The week before Christmas we went to a really nice wedding. There happened to be an unusually large proportion of pregnant women there, of whom I was probably the least visibly gestating amongst the crowd. We were seated next to one of the pregnant women and her husband at the reception and she was lovely as well as positively glowing with good health. We made a joke about the proportion of pregnant guests being a way of cutting costs on the bar tab.

She asked me how how far along I was, and without thinking, I returned the question. Her answer startled me. '23 weeks,' she replied, nonchalantly, as if it were the least interesting fact in the world. And it probably was for her, because she wasn't making any associations between 23 weeks and that horrible term 'viability'. Perhaps she didn't even know what 'viability' was. Perhaps it had never crossed her mind that her baby could die if born too early. It took everything I had not to shout out 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!'. I couldn't understand why she was out and about in the world without a care as to the danger her baby was in.

All I could think was that I was once 23 weeks pregnant. And then, in a flash, my baby was gone. Just like that. Gone. Gone.

I held back the tears but spent the rest of the evening obsessively staring at her belly in absolute disbelief, perhaps even admiration. How did she do it? How did she make it seem that keeping a baby inside her, at the most crucial time of its development, was the easiest, most effortless thing in the world?

On November 23rd 2011 I was 22+6 weeks pregnant and as far as I can remember feeling fine except for a persistent back ache. Today, January 9th 2013, I am 22+6 weeks pregnant again. I have to keep reminding myself that this is a different baby, a different day, but it's proving so difficult. This week has been hard and horrible. I've hardly been able to breathe inside the suffocating cloud of fear and superstition that's surrounding me. I've been putting off writing anything this week because I secretly fear that in giving voice to my worries I might make them come true. Logic has no place in this experience. I'm full of a million reasons to doubt its attempted reassurances. This baby will die, I hear on repeat. It will disappear at 23 weeks. Because that's what babies do. It's no wonder I'm shaking.

This baby is more real to me than Max was before he was born. I can stare at his picture now and know what this little girl looks like inside of me. I know what her little hands and feet would feel like to touch. I know how perfectly formed she is. She's completely imaginable and knowing this time just what I have to lose makes this overwhelming anxiety even more impossible to bear.

The baby herself is doing all she can to reassure me that she's OK. She's incredibly active, doing whatever form of water calisthenics in which fetuses seem to be trained. Leslie can even feel her when he puts his hand on my tummy now. She's strong, and she's sleepless. She doesn't seem to rest very much. I guess it is because she has too much living to do.

I dare to think of her arriving home with us and keeping us awake all night. We won't be able to complain like other new parents. We'll just look at each other and say 'she's got too much living to do'.

There's no physical reason to suspect that she will be born, as the sun is, with the dawning of a new day tomorrow. My cervix was still long and closed at my examination on Monday and there's no sign of bacteria or infection. If the worst had not happened to me once before there'd be no reason to be at all suspicious at this point, the obstetrician assures me. It helps for a minute before I remember that I cannot trust even her. If the experts could not tell me what happened to cause Max to be born so early then how do I trust that they are any more accurate in making predictions about this pregnancy?

She says she'll see me next Monday, at 23+3 weeks. I shrug, smile and say 'I hope so...'

I only hope so.