Today is Friday. Mike has taken the day off from work to get some things done around the house and have a little time to himself. He’s been stretched thin going to work, attending to the pets and the house, and then rushing over here to grab a few hours of bittersweet time with me before going home to sleep alone. He never eats dinner and has lost about five pounds in the past week.
He’s going to try to make it to my ultrasound this morning, though they only ever give me 20 minutes notice. It would be a nice occasion for him to participate in my healthcare, as he has been mostly relegated to the position of Dad, which is pretty far down the list of important people to the hospital staff. We don’t get it. When it comes to maternity issues, the father is always treated like an accessory, told to go hang out until something deemed important happens, as though men are some how immune to the stress of watching their baby mommas writhe in pain they helped bring about, or that every moment of this process is unimportant except the last one (when the baby comes out). Delivery and all the medical care involved in getting to that point are completely mother-centric, shredding the togetherness that many couples work hard to maintain during a pregnancy.
Sunday is Father’s Day. It’s hard for us to celebrate, given the precariousness of our situation. I’ll be 26 weeks, 5 days. Babies born at this gestational age have roughly an 80% chance of survival, though there are no stats to describe Mr. A’s likelihood of making it, what with his C-CAM being so large. The medication they have me on, Indicin, is like a very strong ibuprofen. The good news is that it works in keeping me out of labor. The bad news is that it presents risks to the fetuses and is given in 48 hour spurts, separated by as many days as possible. So, when they take me off it today, I could end up in labor again within a day or two without a safe way to stop it.
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