Thank God I've found this site. I thought I might go crazy trying to make others understand me who honestly can't and never will. I'm sorry if this gets long or jumps around, I've kind of worked myself into a state right now...
My daughter is 12 days old and was born by emergency c-section after I had decreased fetal movement for 2 days and she was in distress when I went to get checked out. She was born with pulminary hypertension, pneumonia, respiratory distress syndrome, metabolic acidosis, and was born at 36-weeks something (some doctors have called her a preemie, others say she's term) and was 5.5 lbs and 17.75 inches long. I don't know if it was a traumatic birth, but I did feel everything with my c-section and was even able to narrate to my husband (who was sitting with me) what the doctor was doing at each moment. I got to hear from my husband, right after the doctor announced it was a girl, "Why is she blue?" And she never cried. We begged and begged as they worked on her and stapled me up, and eventually intubated her, but she never cried. She was tansported to the nearest NICU, which is 2 hours away from us (3 hours from the hospital I was in). I was diagnosed with pre-e after she was born and had to be in the hospital for 4 days, away from her. I only had got to see her for a second before they took her away.
She's fabulous, that's all I have to say. They originally thought she would be in the NICU for a month or more. They had her on a jet vent and underwent a total-body-cooling to help stem any brain damage from the acidosis. By day 3 she was off the jet vent and on a conventional one. By day 4 she was on just oxygen. Day 5 she was off even that, breathing room air. We're so proud of her.
Her father has been an awesome dad, and went to be with her at the NICU while his mother (whom I'm very close with) stayed with me during my hospitalization. He's an awesome support, and I'm so proud of him, too.
I just have so much guilt that everyone brushes off with "ssh"s and "oh, honey, don't think like that"s.
What if I had gone in as soon as I had noticed she wasn't moving as much? Would they have been able to do anything for us?
What if I had just said no to those couple cigarettes I smoked while I was pregnant? Would she still have been so small?
What if I had stayed away from my aunt and her family when they were sick? Would she still have contracted pneumonia?
I can't afford to stay in a hotel in the city, and we live "too close" to qualify for the Ronald McDonald house (but it still takes us 2+ hours to make it through DC-Metro traffic to get to Georgetown University Hospital). I can't see her every day, or even every other day now that we've run out of any "fun money" that we had for this month. And leaving her tears me up so bad her dad is reluctant to take me there.
I came home from the hospital without my baby. That's not how it's supposed to be. Instead of breast feeding my sweet little girl all I can do is pump and freeze it and hope she has enough from last time to last her until we can afford to ride up there again. I don't get to see my baby every day. Someone else comforts her when she cries. I only heard her cry for the first time on Saturday.
I think one of the worst things is that I can't remember what it felt like for her to move inside me, anymore. I can only remember that terrible feeling of quiet that I had in those last days, and it plagues me, and the feeling of knowing in that last half-hour before my c-section that my baby could be dying inside me. That it could be my fault.
I know my daughter isn't as bad off as many of your babies' have been. Right now the only thing keeping her from coming home is her eating (a subject that will have to have its own post later, as the hospital policies regarding this are pissing me off). I just want to be a good mommy, and all I can feel is hurt. And right now I'm home alone and crying and it doesn't make anything better. I just want to know someone else feels like me, that I'm not bad because I can't be with her all the time, that this wasn't my fault. I don't think anyone can honestly tell me any of that with any certainty, though.
My daughter is 12 days old and was born by emergency c-section after I had decreased fetal movement for 2 days and she was in distress when I went to get checked out. She was born with pulminary hypertension, pneumonia, respiratory distress syndrome, metabolic acidosis, and was born at 36-weeks something (some doctors have called her a preemie, others say she's term) and was 5.5 lbs and 17.75 inches long. I don't know if it was a traumatic birth, but I did feel everything with my c-section and was even able to narrate to my husband (who was sitting with me) what the doctor was doing at each moment. I got to hear from my husband, right after the doctor announced it was a girl, "Why is she blue?" And she never cried. We begged and begged as they worked on her and stapled me up, and eventually intubated her, but she never cried. She was tansported to the nearest NICU, which is 2 hours away from us (3 hours from the hospital I was in). I was diagnosed with pre-e after she was born and had to be in the hospital for 4 days, away from her. I only had got to see her for a second before they took her away.
She's fabulous, that's all I have to say. They originally thought she would be in the NICU for a month or more. They had her on a jet vent and underwent a total-body-cooling to help stem any brain damage from the acidosis. By day 3 she was off the jet vent and on a conventional one. By day 4 she was on just oxygen. Day 5 she was off even that, breathing room air. We're so proud of her.
Her father has been an awesome dad, and went to be with her at the NICU while his mother (whom I'm very close with) stayed with me during my hospitalization. He's an awesome support, and I'm so proud of him, too.
I just have so much guilt that everyone brushes off with "ssh"s and "oh, honey, don't think like that"s.
What if I had gone in as soon as I had noticed she wasn't moving as much? Would they have been able to do anything for us?
What if I had just said no to those couple cigarettes I smoked while I was pregnant? Would she still have been so small?
What if I had stayed away from my aunt and her family when they were sick? Would she still have contracted pneumonia?
I can't afford to stay in a hotel in the city, and we live "too close" to qualify for the Ronald McDonald house (but it still takes us 2+ hours to make it through DC-Metro traffic to get to Georgetown University Hospital). I can't see her every day, or even every other day now that we've run out of any "fun money" that we had for this month. And leaving her tears me up so bad her dad is reluctant to take me there.
I came home from the hospital without my baby. That's not how it's supposed to be. Instead of breast feeding my sweet little girl all I can do is pump and freeze it and hope she has enough from last time to last her until we can afford to ride up there again. I don't get to see my baby every day. Someone else comforts her when she cries. I only heard her cry for the first time on Saturday.
I think one of the worst things is that I can't remember what it felt like for her to move inside me, anymore. I can only remember that terrible feeling of quiet that I had in those last days, and it plagues me, and the feeling of knowing in that last half-hour before my c-section that my baby could be dying inside me. That it could be my fault.
I know my daughter isn't as bad off as many of your babies' have been. Right now the only thing keeping her from coming home is her eating (a subject that will have to have its own post later, as the hospital policies regarding this are pissing me off). I just want to be a good mommy, and all I can feel is hurt. And right now I'm home alone and crying and it doesn't make anything better. I just want to know someone else feels like me, that I'm not bad because I can't be with her all the time, that this wasn't my fault. I don't think anyone can honestly tell me any of that with any certainty, though.
It hurt more to be brushed aside than if someone would have just said, "yeah that really blows." No one can understand that feeling of walking out of the hospital without your child if they haven't done it before. The worst part for me was that I was single when my 33weeker was born and I had to get up and get her oldest sister to school the very next day and at the bus stop someone said, "gee, you are so tiny. it's hard to believe you are so pregnant." Ummmmmm, that's because I'm NOT pregnant anymore and I should be. I remember that devastation of walking out of the hospital both times and thinking, "I just left my kid in the care of strangers in a plastic box and when she cries, I won't be there." I was a wreck. The last time with my 33 weeker, I walked out of the hospital and there was a dad helping a new mommy into the backseat of the car batting away balloons and flowers while she rode home with her new perfect little baby who was a healthy 7 or 8lbs and with no medical conditions and not struggling to breathe or keep her temperature up or be attached to wires and leads and machines and definitely was NOT in a plastic box. All I can say is that the pain doesn't ever leave you but it does lessen with time. After almost 2 years since my last preemie and almost 5 years since my first preemie, that hospital soap smell doesn't throw me into a panic anymore. We all do the best we can do. I COULD beat myself up over the stress and double shifts at work that MIGHT have caused my PPROM but honestly, that didn't help then and it won't help now. I know it's hard but try to put it all aside just fro now. Concentrate your effort on healing yourself and letting your baby heal enough to come home. The NICU is a long road no matter what gets you there and how long you stay. We were blessed to have 11 day stays with each girl but that doesn't mean it wasn't 11 days of sheer hell.
