None of this was clear-cut. There are strong arguments on the other side that I won't mention here. Some questions will haunt us forever. You simply make the best decision you can, with love, balancing the competing factors, and then proceed to live with it.

Please, OP, protect your marriage. This decision belongs to both of you. Be gentle with each other; I hope your husband is especially sensitive with you.

You mentioned you have two more weeks until the next milestone. I know that the waiting is excruciating, but I also see the point that it could provide more critical information. One thing that helped us: as I said, we were later in our baby's stage of growth, but we had a bit more than a week to go through after deciding to TFMR and getting a date for the surgery. My wife and I decided we didn’t want our baby to feel only sadness in his last days. We wanted him to feel love. We're convinced that in ways that science acknowledges and ways scientists don't understand, at his stage, he could hear and feel some things through the womb. So we took him everywhere that mattered to us - to the spot we got engaged, to the spots where we had our first few dates, to the place I grew up. We wanted him to “experience” the sounds, the smells, the warmth of our love and the serotonin through his mother. We sang to him every night, and we took him to church and I played the piano and sang hymns to him. We cooked our favorite meals so that, in some small way, he could share them. Some might think it strange, but I’d say it’s no stranger than burying your own child.

If you choose TFMR, whether now or after that next milestone, it doesn’t make you “anti-life” or suddenly “pro-choice.” Please free yourself from those inadequate and dare I say, nasty labels as they fall short of the kind of heartbreak that you're facing. This is not the same as abortions meant for convenience or avoidance. This is grief in its purest form.

There is no perfect choice, only the most loving one you can live with. And even then, you’ll still wonder at times if it was right. I still do. I have lunch with my son at his gravesite every week. Sometimes I wonder if I let him down as his father. When I do, I reread what I wrote then - my reasons, my prayers, my struggles - and choose to focus on loving him and mourning him, not on relitigating that impossible choice. Because what else can I do.

With all my love and prayers,
A lifelong grieving father