It’s Crossover Day: the day I have been both dreading and looking forward to since I saw two lines on a pregnancy test.
At this exact gestational age last year, I checked myself into the hospital, only to be discharged 6 days later with no baby.
I’ve wondered for many months how it would feel to be here again, and the only word I can put my finger on is: weird. It feels weird. Not good, not bad, not really nerve-wracking (ok… a little nerve-wracking), but it feels strange. It’s kind of like déjà vu, but actually not. This pregnancy has been so different than my last one.
I was having dinner with Chris last night and I brought this up. He asked what I meant by “different,” and the best way I could describe it was that last time, I felt like my pregnancy was going on in the background of my life. Yes, I was growing a human, but I was still going about my life business-as-usual. I had the same friends, the same activities, I was following the same people on social media, I was still focused on work, I was still going to the gym, and I was still hanging out with friends. On the side, I was watching YouTube videos about what to add to your baby registry, and I had doctor’s appointments about every 4-5 weeks, but that was just going on in the periphery.
This time around, my pregnancy IS my life. It’s the first thing I think of when I wake up, and the last thing I think of when I go to sleep. My friends group has changed. I rarely leave my house. My morning and evening centers around my meds routine and taking my blood pressure. My main focus in my life is reducing stress. My Instagram is flooded with loss-mom-content. My social calendar is mostly non-existent, but when I do have things to do, they are scheduled around my frequent doctors’ appointments and scans. Almost every conversation with Chris eventually veers into “do you think the baby is ok” territory.
My entire life is this pregnancy. And finally, tomorrow, I will be the most pregnant I’ve ever been. Well, that’s not entirely true, Maliyah lived for 48 hours after I checked into the hospital, but tomorrow will be my most-pregnant-not-hospitalized day. Hopefully. I don’t foresee any emergency hospital visits, but you never know. 25 weeks and 2-4 days has been in my mind for months.
For crossover day, we are currently in the Catskills. The main reason we picked this week was because my office was closed. Also, of course, I knew crossover day was coming and I needed a distraction. After we booked the trip, I told Chris we’d be away for crossover day, and I fully expected him to be surprised. I feel like he is able to compartmentalize much better than I can, so I figured he hadn’t thought about the timing, but I was wrong. He said of course he knew that. I asked him if it made him nervous to be away from a hospital (because it definitely made me nervous!) and he said no. He said no, because we had a scan 2 days before we left, everything looked perfect, my blood pressure has been great, and we have no indications of things going south. But still, I’m nervous.
We also picked this week because it’s nearing the time I will not feel comfortable leaving the city anymore. I know for my mental health, I will need to be within 15 minutes of a Level IV NICU at all times. Also, I will need to be within New York State, because every other state continues to make headlines for killing pregnant women.
A few weeks ago, someone asked me how far along I was, and I said 20 weeks. They were surprised, and they said, “wow! 20 weeks already? Time flies, doesn’t it?” I looked at them dead in the eyes and said, “no. time does not fly. Time is crawling.” I thought 25 weeks 2 days would never come.
I have been jealous of my loss mom friends who had earlier losses and therefore had their crossover days many weeks ago. I know this makes no sense; I didn’t actually want Maliyah to die before she did. But when you have an early loss, you get past that date in a subsequent pregnancy sooner and sometimes getting past that date brings along with it some peace and confidence. For me, 25 weeks and 2-4 days was soooo far away from that initial positive test. There were many months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds to get through before this moment. And they did NOT fly by.
Two weeks ago, I spoke to my mom on a Friday afternoon, and she asked me what my plans were for the weekend. That question stopped me in my tracks. The weekend? I had completely forgotten it was Friday, and I had literally 0 plans. By the way, I am completely fine with 0 weekend plans, it was just remarkable that I hadn’t even considered the two days ahead of me. I was so extremely laser-focused on the current moment in time and getting through it, that it had not occurred to me to make ADVANCE plans.
I mentioned in my post about the danger zone that everyone has different points at which they feel confident in their pregnancy. For a lot of people, 24 weeks is that point. Many doctors call this “viability,” or when a baby has a chance of survival outside the womb. But that chance is not great, and I was already past 24 weeks when Maliyah died. Also, “survival” could still mean immense complications. The numbers are: 40% of babies born at 24 weeks’ gestation survive, 50% of those born at 25 weeks, 60% of those born at 26 weeks, 70% for 27 weeks, and 80% for 28 weeks. The countdown is on.
As I approached crossover day, my anxiety was ramping up. I could tell by my heartrate when I took/take my blood pressure. It’s a vicious cycle, I’m nervous it will be high, I get stressed about taking it, the stress and anxiety makes it high, and then I’m more stressed and nervous because it’s elevated. Being out of town and far from the hospital doesn’t help. I see that my pulse is nearly 100 before I’m going to take my blood pressure and the moment I’m done, it goes back down to 75. I can’t seem to get a handle on my stress, and I know it’s crucial to do so, which only makes me more frustrated. The loop continues.
I am hoping I will feel less stressed once we cross this threshold of 25 weeks 4 days, and once I am back in the city in proximity of emergency care.
I keep hoping and hoping to front-load the growth of this baby, in case we need to take him out early, so he has the best chances. So far so good. We’ve already hit a few crossover milestones (more on milestones coming soon). He is officially bigger than Maliyah ever was. And he’s probably 2 pounds by now, which is a weight Maliyah never hit. At our last scan when we found out he was 1 pound 10 ounces, I turned to Chris and I said, “2-pound babies live.” Would I like him to be 3 pounds? 4? 5? Even 6? Yes! But being across the 2 threshold is already giving me some hope. I would not say I’m “confident” in any way, shape, or form, but my hope is slowly growing.
I remember vividly being in the hospital last year and begging for additional days or weeks, and now, I’m getting them (hopefully). I am thankful for each day more, and I hope there are many of them.
I’ve used the word, “hope” 7 times in the last three paragraphs. Maybe if I type it here some more, I’ll internalize it!
Hope… hope… hope… hope… hope… hope… hope… hope… hope… hope… hope… hope…
(Written at: 25 weeks, 2 days)
