Do you feel you *caused* the special needs? - Page 2

[Raene]

I do this too. It was my diet. Or, it was the radiation from the plane flight while in the early stages of pregnancy. Or, it was my fault for drinking city water. Etc etc. I totally understand where you're coming from.

[pimms]

I have wrestled with these questions and feelings too. It's hard not to!

My son has a syndrome called CHARGE, it involves a series of complicated congenital defects, including a heart defect.

One of the most gnawing questions in my gut, was it environmental? We lived in NYC when I got pregnant with DS. I was in the World Financial Center, the building next to World Trade Center 1 on Sept 11. I was there for all of it. We lived on 27th St on the West side, it smelled like smoldering metal for MONTHS. I watched the trucks haul away debris in front of our apartment, for months. I just can't shake that maybe all of that exposure lingered in my body somehow and manifested itself in my son's birth defects. *I* have never had an issues post Sept 11, (I am registered with the Sept 11 World Health Registry), but I just wonder. They say this was a random fluke. Maybe it wasn't so random.

My husband and I declined genetic testing, so I can't answer that part of the question. We were told we had a 1% chance that another baby of ours would have the same syndrome. So we went with those odds, and had two additional "healthy/normal" babies.

[dbsam]

I often wonder if I caused or could have avoided their health issues.

My children’s prematurity – Could I have done more to avoid going into labor early? Now that I’ve found MDC I see books about carrying multiples longer, eating more protein, etc. I was not informed enough.

My son’s CP – He is doing great now but when he was younger and struggling I beat myself up constantly. I blame myself for many things…allowing the OBGYN to deliver him in such a violent way, not demanding a C-section, not demanding the doctors stop what they were doing, not knowing more about delivery options, etc. I also blame my OBGYN for delivering a transverse preemie in a way I feel caused his brain bleed.

My son’s CMT4f – Could a genetic variance be a result of IVF? We have no family history of CMT. My husband and I are not carriers. My children were frozen as embryos – this can’t be a good thing. They were conceived using drugs and I had to continue with various drugs throughout the pregnancy. We also used ICSI – maybe a sperm that wasn’t ‘meant to make it’ was forced into the egg. We were told when ttc that the IVF processes have no negative affect on the babies – but I’m not sure. It is difficult to tell since so many mothers who use IVF have medical issues to begin with, are older, etc.

My daughter’s Epilepsy – We do not know the cause but wonder if it is vaccine related. I wish I would have delayed vaccines or gave her less/no vaccines.

My daughter’s undiagnosed issues like ‘quirkiness’/OCD – I’m odd, OCD, deal w/depression, etc. I think she inherited these traits from me.

I re-think my decisions and continue to do so:
Would my children be healthier if I would have tried harder to continue breastfeeding?
Am I making a mistake medicating my daughter for seizures?
And on and on…
Does it ever end? I try to ‘make up’ for decisions I regret making in the past by doing everything perfectly going forward. Unfortunately, it is not possible.
Sorry for the rambling…

[fairejour]

My DD is Deaf because of her birth trauma and related NICU experience. In the beginning I blamed myself. "If I had been stronger" or "If I'd asked for the c-section earlier". Then I went through a stage of being SOOO angry at the OB. Yeah, in reality, it is his fault. Who pulls so hard on a baby with forceps as to move the mother down the table?!?! But it doesn't help to be mad. She is who she is, and I love her for it, not inspite of it.

[justmama]

I do wonder and feel the guilt over my daughter's breathing problems. She was a 33weeker AND with my HG I was on zofran from weeks 8 to 33 and that probably wasn't GOOD for her. I worry that we could have avoided the prematurity if I wasn't working double shifts to make ends meet. There's nothing I can do about it now obviously but I do feel the guilt that I could have prevented this when i see her struggling to breathe and needing multiple breathing treatments and constantly turning up with pneumonia.