The doctors cannot tell us whether our baby will survive the pregnancy

Dear Delyara, I am twenty-four weeks pregnant. Our baby has a serious heart defect. The doctors explain percentages carefully, but every appointment ends in uncertainty. She may survive pregnancy and need surgery immediately after birth. She may deteriorate before then. There are decisions we may have to make, none of which I can think about for more than a few seconds without becoming physically sick. People keep asking when I am due. I say December. They smile and ask whether we know the sex. I say girl. Then comes the usual happiness, and I have to decide whether to ruin a stranger’s smile by adding, “She may not come home.” My husband talks to my stomach every night. He tells her about our dog and the room we painted before the scan. I cannot join him some nights because loving her out loud feels like tempting the future to punish us. Then guilt comes because she is already my daughter and deserves to be loved whether she stays for seventy years or seven minutes. I have never understood uncertainty as a physical place until now. We live there. We buy groceries there. We fold baby clothes there. Nobody knows when we get to leave.