Silent Grief: Pregnancy, Stillbirth and Infant Loss
A reader writes: It’s been two weeks since my baby died. I was 6 1/2 months pregnant. She had been extremely active ever since I first started feeling her move, but at around 22 or 23 weeks there were days when she wouldn't move at all. At 26 weeks, when I hadn't felt any movement for two days straight, my doctor ordered a full ultrasound, which showed no movement at all, although there was a heartbeat.
A reader writes: It’s been two weeks since my baby died. I was 6 1/2 months pregnant. She had been extremely active ever since I first started feeling her move, but at around 22 or 23 weeks there were days when she wouldn't move at all. At 26 weeks, when I hadn't felt any movement for two days straight, my doctor ordered a full ultrasound, which showed no movement at all, although there was a heartbeat.
During the emergency c-section that followed, my baby was stillborn. After the C-section, I was in the hospital for three and a half days, during which I got to spend as much time with my daughter as I wanted. At first I thought this was a crazy idea but those precious moments I got with her in those days are all I will ever get to hold on to. Plus, we got the opportunity to get some pictures which we may never look at or maybe we'll cling to them -- who knows? The hospital was great, they helped us get foot prints and even called someone in to make molds of my baby girl’s feet. They also made us a birth certificate, since technically we don’t get one since she never took a breath.
I didn't cry until the night I got home from the hospital. It hit me in a wave. In the days since then I've been trying to stay as busy as I possibly can, which isn't very much seeing as I'm supposed to be resting for the next few weeks. But if I stop for two seconds I have a panic attack. I miss my baby. Yesterday there was a memorial -- but yesterday was supposed to be the day I got my 3D ultrasound pictures. I'm not supposed to be grieving the loss of a daughter I never got to know. I'm not supposed to be worrying about no one remembering her but me. Or people belittling my loss because I never got to be "attached" to my child. No one can "remember" her -- except for my baby's father and me. And really all he can remember was the dead baby we got to spend time with at the hospital, and that’s not the daughter I think of.
It’s weird and hard to explain to anyone else except to say that when you have someone growing inside you, you feel like you already know her. I knew what time of day she kicked the most, I knew that she liked to be on the left side of my tummy and I knew that if I put headphones on my tummy and put a certain track of a classical CD I have on she'd start to kick like crazy. So even though I didn't know the color of her eyes or the sound of her laugh, I knew a different baby than the one they gave to me. It’s still hard for me to admit that that was my baby. In the hospital I held her as much as I could bear to -- but I never told her I loved her, and I never kissed her, and now I wish I did. I felt like I was holding a doll. I felt like I was going to wake up and it would be some horrible nightmare.
I’m sure wherever my baby is she knows how much I love her, but I wish I could go back in time and express that more when I had her with me. I loved my child from the second I found out I was pregnant. All I ever wanted was for her to be healthy and for some unknown reason this had to happen. I am so angry and sad and I don’t know how to move foreword. I don’t see myself being able to move forward. I know people say it takes time, but I want my baby back. I'll always want my baby back. I just don’t know where to go from here. I feel so alone in my grieving for this baby, like no one else can truly understand because she was inside me and I was the only one who knew her in any way when she was alive.
Now I can’t help but wonder “what if?” about absolutely everything that I did during my pregnancy. These questions keep circling around in my head and I feel a bit insane at times. I'm worried that whenever I get pregnant again I'll be afraid to leave my bed. I hate to look at my body because my boobs are starting to shrink as the milk dries up, and my stomach is slowly deflating -- I can see my toes again but I'm not supposed to be able to right now. I think the worst part of the physical part is the fact that I am going to have a permanent scar to remind me I lost my daughter. Emotionally though all I can think is that as soon as it’s physically possible I want to be pregnant again. I would never dream of having a child to "replace" this baby because that simply isn't possible and I know that, I really do. But I was very, very ready to be a mom. Being a mom has always been number one on my list of things to do. That idea is what I cling to when I feel like everything is falling apart.
I didn't cry until the night I got home from the hospital. It hit me in a wave. In the days since then I've been trying to stay as busy as I possibly can, which isn't very much seeing as I'm supposed to be resting for the next few weeks. But if I stop for two seconds I have a panic attack. I miss my baby. Yesterday there was a memorial -- but yesterday was supposed to be the day I got my 3D ultrasound pictures. I'm not supposed to be grieving the loss of a daughter I never got to know. I'm not supposed to be worrying about no one remembering her but me. Or people belittling my loss because I never got to be "attached" to my child. No one can "remember" her -- except for my baby's father and me. And really all he can remember was the dead baby we got to spend time with at the hospital, and that’s not the daughter I think of.
It’s weird and hard to explain to anyone else except to say that when you have someone growing inside you, you feel like you already know her. I knew what time of day she kicked the most, I knew that she liked to be on the left side of my tummy and I knew that if I put headphones on my tummy and put a certain track of a classical CD I have on she'd start to kick like crazy. So even though I didn't know the color of her eyes or the sound of her laugh, I knew a different baby than the one they gave to me. It’s still hard for me to admit that that was my baby. In the hospital I held her as much as I could bear to -- but I never told her I loved her, and I never kissed her, and now I wish I did. I felt like I was holding a doll. I felt like I was going to wake up and it would be some horrible nightmare.
I’m sure wherever my baby is she knows how much I love her, but I wish I could go back in time and express that more when I had her with me. I loved my child from the second I found out I was pregnant. All I ever wanted was for her to be healthy and for some unknown reason this had to happen. I am so angry and sad and I don’t know how to move foreword. I don’t see myself being able to move forward. I know people say it takes time, but I want my baby back. I'll always want my baby back. I just don’t know where to go from here. I feel so alone in my grieving for this baby, like no one else can truly understand because she was inside me and I was the only one who knew her in any way when she was alive.
Now I can’t help but wonder “what if?” about absolutely everything that I did during my pregnancy. These questions keep circling around in my head and I feel a bit insane at times. I'm worried that whenever I get pregnant again I'll be afraid to leave my bed. I hate to look at my body because my boobs are starting to shrink as the milk dries up, and my stomach is slowly deflating -- I can see my toes again but I'm not supposed to be able to right now. I think the worst part of the physical part is the fact that I am going to have a permanent scar to remind me I lost my daughter. Emotionally though all I can think is that as soon as it’s physically possible I want to be pregnant again. I would never dream of having a child to "replace" this baby because that simply isn't possible and I know that, I really do. But I was very, very ready to be a mom. Being a mom has always been number one on my list of things to do. That idea is what I cling to when I feel like everything is falling apart.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your comments are welcome!