The descent

I really couldn't believe it, couldn't process what the doctor was saying. I'd been so convinced all along that I'd be stuck on bed rest that her words were incomprehensible. I asked why, and she was very kind, explaining that nothing they'd tried to halt my body's slide had worked. And she explained it repeatedly as I found multiple ways to ask the same question repeatedly.

And all I could think was that the delivery would mean death for my child.

The doctor explained what would happen, how I would be prepped, what the operation would be like, what would happen to the baby (the baby who would die.)

I asked, no begged: "Why can't we push my body to the very brink? Why now?"

And her clearly articulated response: "We're already past that point."

After rounds of repetition failed to stem my tears or the onslaught of disbelief, the doctor said she'd send in various people to answer more questions. She said the operation would happen at 4 p.m. and that she wanted to do it.

Sympathetic glances from the team, maybe some pats, and they left me alone. Alone to process, or begin the attempt to fathom ...

Look at my eyes in this photo. I took this of myself when I realized I didn't have any photos of the "momentous" occasion. I don't know why I smiled, but my eyes tell the real story.

I called my family to tell them. It was late morning at this point.

The various people began to arrive. The gentle nurse from the NICU returned (she'd been by the day before, I believe, and explained the same things, though I couldn't remember the details of her previous visit, wouldn't have been able to remember it for anything.) She gave me the statistics and explained how these cases progress, from delivery and crisis care for the infant to the transfer to the NICU. And those statistics: I couldn't cite them now, about rates of disability depending on X and so forth, but she did repeat that my child had about a 40 percent to 50 percent chance of survival. So I folded into my understanding that statistic and it helped cement the knowledge that my baby would die.

The social worker returned, and I reiterated my fears and grief for my son, and fears about his own grief. How would I explain to him the loss of his greatest happiness? How could I possibly? And how could I begin to survive his grief?

In the end, nothing anyone said or probably could have said would have made a difference. The events played out as they inevitably were meant to play out. Except I suppose I don't actually believe that, considering I know that if only, if only, if only I had done one little, undefinable thing in a different way, I wouldn't be crying inconsolably on a hospital bed waiting for my child's delivery into death.