Statistically Challenged

Dave and I met 17 years ago. At the time, the chances that we would meet were 1 in 24 million.

We just celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary last weekend. We now have 60% chance that we will stay married. (Which means a 40% chance we'll get divorced. That sucks, huh?! Just over 50/50 odds.)

Dashell had a 1% chance of being diagnosed with Femoral Focal Hypoplasia with Unusual Facies Syndrome. Pre-natally he was given a 70% chance of having it. And after birth, we were told that the chances that he had it were zero.

My chances of conceiving a child with IVF at 40, 23%.

My chances of giving birth to a live IVF child at 41, 16%.

My chances of conceiving a child with IVF at 42, 15%.

My chances of giving birth to a live child at 43, now... 0%.

The chances that my baby would have the particular chromosomal abnormality that it does, 0.5%. (It was deemed veeeery unusual by our specialist.)

The chances my baby's heart would still be beating at 8 weeks 2 days, 0.2%.

The chances I'm slowly going crazy, hanging in this emotional prugatory, 100%.

We have been waiting (and this sounds so cold, but it is the horrible, horrible truth) for this limbo to end. We have been waiting for this heart to stop beating. Yet, it won't. It's the freakin' energizer bunny of abnormal hearts. (You would think this is a good sign, but it's not. So don't get your hopes up.)

When I found out yesterday that it was still beating, I asked if there was any way we could get a conclusive diagnosis (so we could emotionally move on) without having to wait for the results of a CVS test in a month (if this pregnancy continued to progress.)

Yesterday I saw several doctors. The conclusion was that this heart has an unheard of will to continue beating. I was wrong in my last post when I said that this baby's heart was weak. It's not. In fact, it was explained to me that this child is basically all heart. (Sounds kind of sweet, right?)

Normal 8 week fetus...















Our baby...















See what I mean? All heart.

No head.

No arms.

No legs.

Just all heart. Obviously, a lover (and a fighter!)

The doctors were sweet. I did my standard, professional I'm-talking-with-doctor-who's-giving-me-bad-news thing. Which means I made terrible jokes and tried to put them at ease while, at the same time, trying to seem like an emotionally stable person.

But I was crying on the inside. And when I made it to my car, I wept. (Then I went home and ate a half a pint of chocolate ice cream and curled up in bed.)

We are expecting the heart to stop beating this weekend and I'm scheduled for a D&C on Tuesday.

We usually like to pride ourselves on beating the odds. Unfortunately this time we won't.

Chances I'm going to have a drink this weekend to try to forget about all this, 100%.

Chances I'll be distracting myself by visiting with some good friends, 100%.

Chances Dash will do something today that will make me laugh out loud, 100%.

Thank goodness!

I am, in many ways, a very lucky girl.