Blue Knees

In high school I ran track. Being a die hard dancer, sports weren't really my thing and I did it more for the social aspect & to see what all the sports & competition hype was all about. Because I was tall & flexible from my years as a dancer, one of the events I ran was the 300m hurdles. I wouldn't say I was anywhere near the best in that event and usually placed towards the back of the pack, in fact I don't think I had ever placed in any event except for maybe a relay. One meet at a neighboring high school I tripped over one of the first hurdles & fell flat on my face. I was literally a pancake on the track. I remember that moment so distinctly as the decision making process started to run through my head. Should I lay here & not finish the race, should I get up and walk off the track, or should I get up & RUN? Well, I chose door #3 & got up and ran. Call it my adrenaline or a false confidence I instilled in my competitors, but I passed everyone and ended up winning the race. That was the one and only time I ever won (or even placed) an event in a track meet. I learned a very valuable lesson that day: you have many choices in life & giving up is not one of them. The track I was running on happened to be blue & so were my knees, legs, & elbows for a couple of weeks, so for the rest of my high school days everyone on the track team called me "Blue Knees". I never minded being called "Blue Knees", because it reminded me that even falling down & having the odds stacked against me couldn't possibly stop me or hinder my spirit. Even then, I knew that this lesson would apply to all aspects of life.

So with that story being said, I have officially made it to the 3rd trimester! I am safely past the 28 week mark & almost to 30 weeks. Dr. B sets small milestones each time we meet, I like to think of them as hurdles. My first hurdle was to get to 25 weeks when the baby would be viable. Next, it was to make it to 28 weeks when the baby would be viable and have a really good chance at no long term health problems. Now we are aiming for the 32 week hurdle when most of the organ development will have taken place. Our next hurdle is 35 weeks when all of the organ development is complete & we might even get to take baby home with us. Our finish line is 38 weeks when our baby would be considered full term & we will almost definitely have a healthy baby to take home with us. Crossing each of these hurdles is better than winning a blue ribbon at the end of a track meet. And making it to the 3rd trimester is as good of a feeling as making the choice to get up and run after falling. If falling down to only get back up & win the race has given me hope that even after a tragic stillbirth, 6 1/2 weeks on bed rest, weekly preterm labor injections, & a somewhat turbulent pregnancy, we can still have a healthy full term baby at the finish line, then I guess we could say that "Blue Knees" is back!