How to freak the hell out of Rivka:

Doctor Sis: So, how many weeks are you?
rivka: Twenty-three.
Doctor Sis: Wow, you're right at the threshold of viability!
rivka: [stares, blinks, rapidly changes the subject]

But of course, then I had to go and look it up. We indeed appear to be right on the cusp of viability. A 1993 study found that, at Johns Hopkins, no babies born at 22 weeks survived, 15% born at 23 weeks survived, 56% at 24 weeks, and 79% at 25 weeks. So the three weeks of gestation we're working on right now literally mark the line between death and life.

Fetal development is a strange and awesome thing.

I was already talking to my sister about death and life when she mentioned viability. I had called to ask her whether she would be willing to be named as the Li'l Critter's guardian in case Michael and I should simultaneously die in a fiery cataclysm. There's another strange thing to think about. It seems morbid to even bring it up, and yet it's also our duty to make these arrangements. We have chosen to create a tiny, fragile, helpless living thing. Our responsibility to her will not end with our deaths.

So we're looking into acquiring vastly more life insurance, and we're planning to meet with a lawyer sometime this month, to draw up our wills. This conversation with my sister was the first step.