Shortly after we made the decision to continue the pregnancy my partner, Lee, made a plea for mercy. He said that he hoped that we were shown mercy one way or another. Essentially, we agreed, that mercy would be to miscarry soon or to have a long, viable pregnancy which resulted in babies. (Would one live baby be considered mercy? I don't know).
Today I am 20 weeks pregnant. I can safely say that we both agree that we have passed the 'mercy mark' on the miscarriage/infection side. At this stage of pregnancy, if born the babies may live for a couple of hours before passing away in our arms. They will look like babies. And for me, it will not be a 'miscarriage', but then, perhaps that has been true for a while. Either way, 20 weeks seems to make a mark for me that infection or spontaneous labour is no longer merciful: I have waited to long, hoped to hard, begged too loudly and cried to hard for the loss of the pregnancy to be anything but cruel.
Sadly, we are a long way away from the other side of mercy. Viability is technically set to be 24 weeks gestation, but the statistics/anecdotal evidence I have read suggest that 26 weeks is really when the babies start to have a fighting chance (look at the stories at http://www.inkan.se/pprom/). Four or six weeks (or even better, longer) still seems so far away. I have already done five weeks of bed rest and it has been manageable but it just seems to me that the chances of infection or other problems just continue to grow as we move slowly along the gestational calendar.
I have never been a patient person. This long, drawn-out, emotional rollercoaster is just killing me. I seem to be edging nearer and nearer to the line where hope is reasonable, and yet I am just not there yet. It's like an ever-moving target.
Facebook Status: I'm begging you for mercy...
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