26 weeks, 2 days

I had an appointment this morning - check-up and glucose tolerance test. 

Appointment days are (predictably now) much more difficult than other days.  There are so many normal things about check-ups that are so not normal anymore. 

Sitting in a waiting room with other pregnant women who are excited about being there.

Trying to keep my composure with the nurses who are oblivious to our circumstances, who ask the normal OB visit questions like, 'You feel the baby moving ok?'

Drinking that stupid glucose drink, half wondering 'what's the point?'  That drink gave me heartburn.

Sitting in *another* waiting room - the same one Jason and I sat in the day of our first ultrasound, so excited about the news that we were having a girl, completely unaware of what we were about to be told.

Listening to her heart beating with the doppler.  It's such a beautiful sound.  But it just makes me cry.

Watching the stupid tv screen in the exam room - information about 3D/4D ultrasounds, pictures of perfectly healthy babies and happy pregnant mommies.  Sometimes I just turn the tv off.

And then talking with the doctor.  Today, the primary topic of conversation was setting a date for a c-section.  Thinking about that day - ughhh - I just want to throw up.

It feels complicated.  My due date is Sunday, December 2.  Here are all the things that make it complicated, although I'm probably making it more complicated...

Scheduled c-sections are usually at 39 weeks, which would be Sunday, November 25.  So, medically, the best date would be Monday, November 26.

I really want to make the most of the time Jason has to take off.  It would be ideal to schedule a c-section on a Friday, probably the Friday after Thanksgiving - he's already off that day, he'd have the weekend, he could take the following week off, and then he'd have another weekend with me.  He'd have a total of 10 days off, including delivery day - and only 5 of those would be considered 'vacation' days from work.

And 10 days would be really... good?  That feels like the wrong word.  Because none of this is 'good'.  From my point of view, anyway.  10 days.  If we have to bury our baby girl, we need time.  Time to cry and grieve, time to process (I hate that word), time to be together.  10 days would be 'good'.

But that Friday is still technically a holiday.  Doctors don't typically schedule c-sections that day.  Although, I was told today that they would accomodate whatever we ask.  I'm growing to hate that.  I don't want to be in a situation where anybody will do anything they can to accomodate us.  I'd rather be normal - where our lives have to revolve around the doctors and hospital regulations.

And that Friday is Black Friday.  (I know - this is sorta silly.  But it's not.)  It has become an Odell girl (my sisters and I) tradition to shop on Black Friday.  I sorta feel like I'll ruin Black Friday forever if I schedule a c-section that day.  And there's a tiny, irrational part of me that wants screw the rules of pregnancy travel, go to my parents' house for Thanksgiving, and DO the Black Friday shopping.  A last kind of 'normal' thing - keep the routine and tradition - before a new kind of hell begins.

And if I did schedule a c-section for Black Friday, I wouldn't quite be 39 weeks.  If... if... IF my little girl has any chance at survival, I don't want to add any risk by having her delivered too early.  Before her lungs are really ready for breathing. 

All the complicatedness of scheduling Elliana's delivery is nothing compared to the emotion that wells up inside me just thinking about that day.  I feel like I'm scheduling the day of her death.  Like I'm putting on my calendar the day we meet... and say goodbye.  I really don't think I can do this.

That nagging voice of hope won't go away.  Today, I just want it to be silent.