Among the internet message boards, the milestone of 24 weeks of pregnancy is refered to as "V-Day," or "Viability Day." It is generally assumed that 24 weeks of gestation is the absolute earliest you could expect your child to be born and have any sort of chance of survival (although the odds are still probably less than 50/50, and a baby born that early is almost certain to have serious complications). I'm a little over 2 weeks away from that date, and I'm very much looking forward to it.
I have a friend whose daughter was born just shy of 24 weeks of gestation - I belive it was 23 weeks and 5 days or so (at that point, every single day is hugely important). After struggling for 8 days, she passed away. Her short life is always on my mind, and never more so than right now as I approach that milestone.
I think a lot of women find the first trimester to be the scariest, but I didn't. While I absolutely believe that a miscarriage is devastating, it also is (unfortunately) relatively common. It happens to a pretty large number of women. I think many women hit the end of the 1st trimester and assume smooth sailing from that point on, but I know better. Not all pregnancies that make it that far result in take-home babies.
While I would have been sad if I miscarried early on, I wasn't as attached to the baby then as I am now. Now, I'm feeling movement, and I know this baby is a boy. If something were to go wrong now, I would give birth to a BABY. The baby would probably even be alive for a very short amount of time. These next few weeks will be much scarier than the first trimester was.
Only two more weeks to V-day. That isn't enough of a milestone, though. Every day counts. I have another friend whose baby was born at 29 weeks or so, and, while he was in the NICU for quite awhile, he's fine now. Maybe that should be the next milestone for me.
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