ksmom
Shiny_Rock
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2011
- Messages
- 297
Circe said:I am so very terribly sorry for your loss. I can feel how you struggled with your decision, and for whatever a stranger's opinion is worth, I think you did the right thing, to spare her the probability of great pain. And also for what it's worth ... I lost a wanted child five years ago, at just about the same point in the pregnancy. And it completely broke me for a year or so: I don't know how much of it was a variation of postpartum hormones, and how much can be attributed to the uncertainty and self doubt that I felt as I tried to conceive again. I lost another two pregnancies that year, thankfully earlier on, and I didn't start to feel hope until that third one, ironically enough, when I had to face the fact that it hadn't been anything I'd done ... it was a medical issue, and one I'd have to figure out how to treat. It turned out to be a blood clotting disorder. I went to one of the best fertility specialists in the city - any of you in NYC, I recommend Cristina Matera as highly as one possibly can - and she got me tested for everything under the sun, and six months later I was pregnant again. The pregnancy was absolutely terrifying: I felt like I couldn't trust my body at all, like I couldn't keep the baby safe until he was out in the open. Thank goodness, my team of very professional docs - from the fertility specialist to the blood specialist to the thyroid specialist to the high-risk pregnancy specialist to the high risk pregnancy psychiatrist - got me through it without my losing my mind. But I don't think I'll ever forget the nightmarish experience of giving birth to my dead child. And I think it's a cruel holdover that in our society, women are all too often expected to keep pregnancy losses a secret, or to brush them off like they're no big thing. It's repugnant. I don't know if you're seeing anybody to talk, but I know for me, a) first talking about it here on the boards, then, b) realizing which of my friends were there for me, and, c), finding a trained professional to help work through all of the conflicting griefs and fears and rages probably saved my sanity. It sounds like you've been incredibly brave and incredibly strong throughout this ordeal. But I really hope that you can lean on whomever you need, from us on out, to achieve the healing you need.
Circe, thank you so much for sharing. I share your disdain for how pregnancy loss is treated by our culture; the fault is seemingly the mother's, something to be ashamed of and not validated as a legitimate loss. Just because nobody saw her on anything but an ultrasound, somehow that makes her less real. I do find myself often daydreaming of gazing into her eyes, and I understand how powerful that moment is when mother and baby are established as distinct people. But she *was* a person, dammit. As were the babies you lost. I am so sorry that you had to give birth in the ward of a hospital where healthy babies were being born all around you.
I vacillate between wanting to talk about it, and allowing my head to dip under water, where it's quiet and dark and muted. I am grateful for the support of this community and have come back to this thread to read everyone's responses many many times- I'm probably more than half the clicks on this thread.