Precious, precious life

First of all, I am asking that you all send out your prayers and well wishes to Mo. After a long struggle TTC, she is now facing her precious baby boy at 23 weeks - so close to the line of viability, but so far away. I'm still holding out hope that she will get her miracle and her precious baby boy will be able to fight and beat the odds. It's happened before. Babies born as early as 22 weeks have survived against all odds. Please send your prayers that this precious little boy will be one of them.

Life isn't fair sometimes. I'm discovering that more and more. I've been on my own emotional roller coaster. As you know, in the last two weeks I've found out that my sister-in-law and two of my cousins are expecting. Then last night I called my brother to wish him happy birthday (yes, our birthdays are a day apart). What I heard from him is not what I had expected.

Apparently, on Thursday, my SIL started having mild spotting. She called the doctor who said not to fret too much, just stay on bed rest. On Saturday, she woke up to "period-like" bleeding and clots passing. She said she was sure it was a miscarriage, so off they went to the hospital. When they got to their local hospital, they discovered that she was dilated 3 cm, and told her that she had miscarried. They sent her to the city to get checked by her specialist - they were worried that she hadn't passed everything.

When they got to the city, they did blood tests and checked her again - her cervix had closed up completely, and her blood tests, and the pee stick showed that she was still pregnant. They tried to do an ultrasound, but the specialist said that she rarely finds anything on a 7 week ultrasound, but in her opinion, my SIL was still pregnant. She told her to go home and stay in bed for a few days.

SIL told me that she went home expecting to continue with a miscarriage. She got up Sunday, expecting all the pain, etc, and it never came. She said that Sunday, there wasn't even a spot, and no pain at all.

On Tuesday, she goes back for blood tests - provided that the levels haven't dropped from Saturday, they are going to call it still viable. Then on Thursday, she goes for an 8 week ultrasound and hopefully they find a viable fetus.

As SIL said, she's miscarried 3 times previously, and this is nothing like any of those times.

The specialist said that if there is still a viable pregnancy, then this is one of two things... either she has an incompetent cervix issue starting and they will stitch it, or she was pregnant with twins and miscarried one of them, but her body is still holding onto the other one.

So, if you have an extra prayer to send out, I ask that you please send one to my brother and SIL for a healthy viable pregnancy, and good results on the tests tomorrow.

As much as this pregnancy has made me somewhat sad and jealous, this is still my niece or nephew and I am struggling so much with the idea that this might end before I can even be ok with it. I feel awful for having anything other than positive feelings about this pregnancy. I haven't ever wished them harm, I just haven't been able to enjoy this pregnancy and celebrate it like I have all of her other pregnancies.

I just hope beyond hope that her results are good tomorrow...