It’s been a little while since I published a post on here, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t had plenty of thoughts as we’ve traveled the sometimes smooth, sometimes bumpy road of pregnancy after loss. Recently, I mentioned to a friend that I had a lot to say about this journey – but not really enough on any one subject to create a blog post. She suggested that I publish a miniseries, so that’s what I’m going to do. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting shorter (but more frequent) blog posts on a variety of pregnancy after loss topics. First up, viability:
I woke up yesterday morning with excitement. That’s pretty rare for me on a Monday morning. We’ve made it to the 23 week mark, which means we’ve made it to viability. As I typed out an exuberant Instagram post, the thought crossed my mind that most “regular people” probably have no idea what the means or why it’s significant.
When it comes to pregnancy and babies, viability is the point where 50% of babies born would survive. Because the survival rate hits 50%, this is also the point where doctors would actually intervene and utilize life-saving efforts to keep the baby alive if something were to happen. Before this point, you’re SOL.
In many places, I would have to wait a whole other week to hit viability – it’s 24 weeks in most places in the U.S. and worldwide it’s even worse. We’re talking about 24 weeks plus a weight restriction. In some places in the world (well-developed nations even), they refuse to resuscitate a baby that’s less than 500 grams. For reference, Brady wouldn’t have made that cut, and we all know how good his odds were in our network of hospitals. We consider ourselves lucky that we had access to the very best care at Children’s.
Of course, I hope that this baby gets a lot more time inside before doctors decide he needs to make his appearance. 14 weeks to be exact. We have our date picked and now we just have to make it there. There’s lots of smaller milestones to hit along the way. Our next milestone is our 24 week ultrasound next week. We hope that we’ll see a cute little guy that’s continuing to grow as expected.
Check back soon – or, better yet, enter your email address in the top right and subscribe so you’re notified when I post new entries. My next post will be on baby showers, and I promise it won’t disappoint 😉
