Having let myself think it would get easier when I started to feel movement, I’m now finding it isn’t easier at all. This baby goes through phases of movement, which my head knows is normal, but my heart isn’t dealing with that at all. Yesterday, for the first time, I found myself thinking “we aren’t going to get all the way” – up until now, my feelings have been mainly positive, if frightened, and this unexpected thought broke through my defences. Unfortunately I have real life people, people I care bout who have had losses at 14 weeks, 16 weeks, 18 weeks, 20 weeks, 23 weeks and that is before you even begin on all the people I know who have lost babies at full term, like we have.
I’m having a really hard time. I’m not really coping, except by turning my head into a none thinking void. I tried to get hold of the hospital councillor, but got no answer and nothing is helping. Not even regular scans are helping, lovely as it is, not even all the amazing midwives caring for me is helping, nothing lasts for more than five minutes. I’m being kept going by the people who have been here and done this before me but times are hard; this week we are remembering Otis and Cullen who died a year ago and the wonderful and joyful birth of rainbow Bennett has given me joy but knocked me for 6 too because he’s had to go to NICU (SCBU in the US). And, horror of horror, Sarah’s family are not only remembering Otis, but have also lost Henry this week, her cousins full term stillborn son. It’s not fair, it’s not fair. This shouldn’t happen once, never mind fucking twice.
I don’t think it had hit me till then how little I have dealt with the reality of those 11 days in SCBU. I’m haunted by the more obvious aspects of it all, realising he wasn’t breathing and watching him die. But I realised a little while ago that I’ve been utterly unable to write about his life. Those 11 days. The fear, the being all at sea and not knowing what people meant. Knowing there was no hope even when people wanted to hope for the best. The fact that I barely slept for more than 3 hours in 24 hours for nearly 2 weeks, until I had to be drugged to sleep. Trying to think of everyone, me, the girls, Max, Freddie. Trying to see ahead. Trying to look behind. Trying to make memories. Trying to make milk. Having to be coherent enough to convince a doctor that I thought it best to let him die if he got more sick while also convincing her that I wanted him to live and I didn’t only want him if he was perfect. Trying to remember the names of drugs. Trying to hold him and talk to him and change nappies and decide whether to learn to feed him by tube. Trying to make decisions about whether he wore our baby clothes.
All of that, all of it and so much more, through post birth, post pregnancy hormones and pain. Dealing with a catheter because my bladder seized up. Trying to work out what the hell went wrong. Remembering not to discuss his birth with Max, the one thing I had to hold on to, because he found it ‘weird’. Trying not to cry. Trying to stay sane enough they wouldn’t put him into care. Not minding that my notes had ‘mother has mental health issues’ written on the front, which I shouldn’t have seen but did. Trying to remember the good moments, not the horrific hours. Trying not to feel guilty that he only EVER had fits when I wasn’t there. I never saw a single one bar a small amount of arm waving and lip trembling, something all my girls have done too. I was almost ALWAYS there and he fitted only when I wasn’t. Trying to forgive myself for leaving the hospital the night he had his eyes open because I had a moment of hope. Not being there when they put him back on oxygen. Telling him to sleep, to rest and then never seeing his eyes again.
All that still to deal with and sort out and put in order and it all might just happen again. And then there is this.
Just wanted to leave you something here. Wishing you all the positive vibes I can and hoping that all the lesser worries of life sort themselves out. x
Thanks Allie. On a real low today. The weekend knocked my feet out from under me. I tidied up paperwork and found letters about him and all sorts. It was hard.
I have no wise words, but just wanted to say I am here. I went though numerous late m/c (although noting like what happened with you and Freddie) and I didn’t believe until I held Maxi in my arms,. We didn’t buy anything until after he was born
I don’t have answers and can’t make things better but I can and am sending lots of hugs and positive thoughts your way.
Thank you, it is amazing how much it helps 🙂
Dearest Merry, I’m sorry things are so hard right now. I really could relate to this post and it sucked me right back to Angus’ pregnancy, in particular. I had so much support, so much reassurance, but nothing really helped. Not until he was born and he cried and I knew he was ok (then of course new worries started, but they were easier worries to deal with, compared to when he was in utero).
You are not alone in thinking these thoughts, feeling this way. Your post really spoke to me and I just want to be able to tell you everything will be ok and for you to be able to believe me. But we both know that can’t happen.
So I will just keep hoping for the best and I know that’s what you’re doing as well, even on the days when you think you’re not going to make it.
xo
I tell you what… doing it once. Maybe. After this? No flipping way! I cannot believe the amount of emotional effort it takes, especially trying to look calm and confident in front of the girls. It is so hard. I want to be positive but the stupid thing is, the more happy rainbow stories there are, the more I think we’ll be the ones who lightening strikes twice. What a horrible thing to be thinking too 🙁
Merry I thought exactly the same way. The stillbirth stats here in Australia are about one in 140 (scary stuff I know) and with every baby born I would sort of keep a tally in my head. Almost as if I was waiting to get to 139 then bam, my baby would all of a sudden be the 140th again. It was irrational, but it was how I felt. It wasn’t always comforting to hear of babies arriving safe and well, because I was still sure mine wouldn’t. So you’re not alone in those thoughts either.
And I think the only reason I went back again was because I didn’t want Angus to be an “only child”. As much as I would like a bigger family and more children, I just don’t think I can do another pregnancy, so we’ll count our blessings and be happy with the two we did manage to come home with. I feel very lucky. I hope you can get lucky again, too.
xo
It (pregnancy after such a huge loss) is almost unbearably hard – you will bear it becuse there’s no other option but it is so, so hard. I don’t have any clue how to make it easier. “I??m not really coping, except by turning my head into a none thinking void” … that’s the only way I made it through – by thinking/feeling/doing/being nothing. Maybe it’s normal to feel on the very edge of losing your mind with terror & exhaustion the whole time?
Just reading about SCBU is desperately painful 🙁
I’m really stunned now, having had it hit me like a tonne of bricks this weekend, but how little of it I have sorted out and coped with. The thing that is the most PTSD about it, I think, is when I see other people in that state of fear/stress/trauma it brings it all back – and all those feelings are so separate but so mixed up with, Freddie. It’s a whole world on from birth trauma, so much so that I almost handle it better, because it is so not thinkable that my brain just won’t think about it. But that means I’ve lost all the precious bits too, because they’ve faded out to only what I have photos of. It’s very hard. Some time I’m going to have to sit and talk about it minute by minute, but goodness only knows when. And the thought it might happen again is so frightening. A C/S or early delivery ups the chances of that and if I found myself having to walk through those doors again, I think I might run away. I couldn’t even get through the delivery ward doors. How on earth would I go back in there?
Thank you for commenting – xxx
if it helps at all (& obviously this is anecdotal) all of mine have been pre-38 week c-sections. In my case it was an easy decision because there’s a higher chance of the placenta just failing – I couldn’t take the risk of going to term & was not willing to be induced. I had steroids with Rufus but didn’t with the others – none have had any breathing/feeding/keeping warm issues though Nell, particularly, was pretty small. Claudia & Jasper both had issues with jaundice but that was to do with blood group incompatibility not gestation.
I was desperate to get them out asap – we had a scare with Ru at 36 weeks & he was very nearly delivered; I just felt relief tbh, but then I haven’t had a sick baby in SCBU 🙁 The consultant pushed the steroids even though I don’t think there’s any evidence that they improve outcome when given that late in pregnancy – to minimise the chance of SCBU, so obviously there is a risk involved.
When you’ve been on the shitty end of statistics it does tend to affect your risk assessments.
I could possibly be in the same boat as you. I am pregnant after a 31 week stillbirth. 24 weeks, feeling the baby move does not make it any easier, I thought it would too. But, every time baby is sleeping, the thoughts start, is he ok?, is the placenta giving him oxygen? Is there a knit in his cord?ugh, it is sooo terribly hard and I keep going back to the thought that I simply cannot control the outcome of this no matter how much I want to give this baby life, I simply cannot control what will happen and so I have to do what I can do and get through each day. Sorry it’s so hard for you too. I wish there was a manual for this…
If there was some automatic right that one loss equalled one living baby next time, that would make it much easier :/ Much love xx
Oh Merry, I feel for you. I can’t imagine how much anxiety there would be with a pregnancy after such loss. I wish I could do it but wonder how I’d cope if I could.
What you wrote about reliving the 11 days of Freddie’s life earthside has struck such a cord with me. I feel so numb to Joseph’s 5 days here and never really go there. But what you said “The fear, the being all at sea and not knowing what people meant. Knowing there was no hope even when people wanted to hope for the best”. Oh, this took me back there. No more to say on that.
I’m remembering Freddie with you, always (gosh our strories are so similar) and hoping tomorrow is a better day. xo
I have just been reading your story. Oh my goodness, oh my dear 🙁 I wish I could fling my arms around you and somehow make it better. Much love.
Hi~ Merry! Lovely mama, sad mama, happy mama, confused mama, desperate, alive, frustrated, angry, scared, anticipatory, hopeful mama. I hear you. I am not pregnant yet, but I hear your words and your grief and the guilt, and the remembering. I am in a space of these things in a different way. Trying to figure out how to keep on keeping on after our babies have died…Blog land is hard because we need the support of other mamas who have lost but it also a constant reminder that this happens and I wish we could forget without forgetting our babies. We all have mental problems…our babies died. I remember when our little tiny dog went in for surgery at UC Davis and was in the doggie ICU. When we went to visit her there was a hand written sign on her cage that said “biter”…to me that translated to “fighter”. SO bite and scratch and fight for our sanity and our love and our memory. Can we ever turn it all into good thoughts. At what point will we be able to remember and be filled with only joy instead of sorrow? I hate that our babies died and I wish I could make your pregnancy be only brightness. We have so much love in our lives and then we have this crushing black hole of loss that is intermingled with the love we had for our child. I wish we could only feel love surrounding them but there loss is so huge sometimes it overpowers the light that they brought to us. I am trying to send you some peace but don’t know how to find it myself. I am trying to send you some compassion when I can’t give it to myself. I am sending you love and hoping that by sending it out I can also give it to myself.
Oh Merry, sorry to hear it is so hard. I hope you find some things to help you cope. I wish I could offer something more than sisterly support. Try looking at the kindle book 52 steps to a stress free life (or some such). The author has lots of suggestions for managing stressful things, e.g. rescue remedy; mantras; prayer balls – it might be worth trying to find some thing to do, or say, or whatever when you have these worries. And, perhaps you could honour Freddie’s 11 days in some way. With 11 events, or 11 things (plants / balloons) … I wish you well mama. Be gentle with yourself. X
Thinking of you, still praying, everything crossed, etc etc. Wish I could say something useful. Just sending lots of love xx
Oh Merry, it’s so hard, isn’t it? Am sending huge love and hoping that you can breathe your way through to the other side of this.
I don’t know if this works for you, but when I have all those anxious / sad / guilty thoughts, I’ve found the tonglen meditation that Angie suggested really good. She talks about it here:
http://stilllifewithcircles.blogspot.com/2009/12/insomnia-and-tonglen.html
The upshot is (as I understand it) that you let yourself think about one sad hard thing at a time, and breathe all the pain and sadness of it in – feeling compassion for yourself and everyone else who has been through it. And then you breathe out with the intention that we can all be free of this sad, difficult stuff. For me, that is easier than trying to make my mind blank – it is like a little deal with the sad thoughts – “Ok, I will feel you, I will feel you properly and fully, and then you can be done with”. And even though the breathing in often makes me cry, the breathing out does bring a calmness and a sense of peace. Sending love and hoping things get easier xxxxxh
Ah yes, Hanen’s suggestion is the sort of thing I was angling at – accepting the worry (it’s impossible to think anyone in your situation could do anything but worry), and having a response up your sleeve to acknowledge it and help you cope with these feelings.. The other thing I wondered about is a kick monitor – I’m sure you can get an app for that, so you can record the movement you feel. Would that help?