a sensitive topic

[rapscallions]

anyone else finding themselves over at the pregnancy loss boards way more than they should be? i don't know how to phrase this without sounding insensitive to the women who have lost children, but i feel like i'm peeking at websites i'm not supposed to. i keep telling myself to log off, but then i read on. i can't put my finger on why this has become an obsession for me -- it isn't scaring me but it's also impossible to think things in the way back of my mind like "hmm, maybe this is why i'm not bonded as closely to this child... not because i'm so busy and tired but ... is this child not meant to be for this world?"

for any women from those boards who might be reading here, my apologies and deepest sorrows for your losses. and gravest regrets if this post somehow offends!!!

[ozzyemm]

Meg-- I do the same thing; so much in fact that my husband has "banned" me from going to sites and posts that deal with baby deaths. I still go there, but it makes me so depressed that I have to log off. Very often I have dreams of my baby with the face of these precious ones.

I maintain the list for the Jan. group, and unfortunately, things happen. DH gets very upset when we read one of the loss stories, and since they are in my DDC, I feel a kinship with them, to the point that I attach their symptoms leading to loss to anything I might be feeling at the time.
:hug I am right there with you!

[cariadanam]

I haven't personally went there, Im kind of the opposite, I can't read those type of posts/stories. However I have heard that it is very NORMAL to have fears about the state or health of your unborn child, to have nightmares about them, and just think up terrible scenarios. It must just be the brain working through something. It doesn't seem like it is anything to be concerned about.

My nightmares are always that the baby is fine but I completely forget to take care of it, including nursing it or changing its diaper.

Maybe do some writing and see what comes out, then let it go as much as possible?

Julie

[starparticle]

Well, I guess I'm "one of those women" - my daughter died at birth last year from a birth defect. If you want the whole story you can read here: http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showpost.php?p=3384756&postcount=96

Anyways, I have a couple of things to say about this:

1) I was a little surprised to hear that there would be people who lurk there who have NOT lost children. My first reaction is to be a little disturbed/shocked/violated, but then I remember that it IS a public board, and I'm happy to share my experience. In fact, a woman who posted on my last due-date club had lost her previous baby at birth - and I really leaned on her accounts of how she handled the death when I had to go through the same thing. I'm thankful I read what she wrote.

2) I can see why your fears (that we all have about our unborn children) might have you lurking there. I know that I had intuitions about the death of Luna that I ignored until it actually happened - not to scare those of you who have that same feeling (it is very normal and common) but you might just need that knowledge in case your ever called to support someone in need...death is part of our lives and needs to be discussed.

Anyways, I'm sure it is fine to peek at "those boards" - but please extend your condolences when something affects you - it means alot to us. As long as your not looking in a sort of "staring at an accident" way, your presence is welcome (by me at least :o )

Rachel

[girrllie]

Rachel, thanks for having the courage to share you story. I'm sitting here crying after reading it.

I sometimes look at the loss boards, especially after having 3 miscarriages. And I keep thinking of what I would do if this baby dies. I would have to keep living for my 4 year old, but beyond that am not sure how I would survive. I think it's just natural instinct to think of all the possiblities. Pregnancy is such a time of happiness that it inevitably also brings thoughts of if that happiness was taken away.

[IncaMama]

i cannot allow myself to go there in my mind or my heart or my computer. i would *rapidly* spiral into a horrible depression that i really just can't afford to have right now. of course i've had those fears too...but as quickly as they come to me, i fight like the dickens to get them out of my head. i know myself and it is just not ok for me to allow myself to think that way. :(

starparticle...your loss breaks my heart. i am so desperately sorry that you have had to face that. i literally cannot imagine it and admire the fact that you are still here to tell the tale. please accept my deepest condolences. i can't read your story now (for reasons i mentioned above) but i will someday...i am so so sorry...

[atozmama]

I struggle with this too. I have had two losses, one at 12 weeks because of Turner's Syndrome and one at 21 weeks because of a partial placental adbruption. Zachariah was born alive, but to small to survive.

For me I have found the reality of a loss changed so dramatically after I actually experienced it. Before hand, I knew they happened, I knew women who had losses and seemingly went on with life. What I learned in actuallity is there is always this huge hole in your life where your baby was, though in some ways still is. Life moves on. I had my son to take care of and that helped me immensly. But there always is the feeling like there should be more. The one comment that gets to me the most now is what a perfect family - 2 boys and 2 girls- it's not.

Like a PP said, I think it is ok to think of these things. I like the concept from Birthing From Within that a worry is something to be worked through and not ignored. What would you do if this happened? I also think that because birth and a newborn brings the capacity of such joy, there is also the capacity equally great sorrow. Kind of like positive and negatives, ying and yang balances in life, mabey in an intuitive sense a pregnant mama knows this and needs to explore it some. For some of us it is being drawn to the stories of those who have experienced it, because most do not have any other way to talk about it. Death and the possiblity of it is not something you can bring up say over lunch. Pregnancy can be a time of such vulnerablitiy, and our society tends to ignore the possiblity of death.

I hope some of this makes sense. I feel really rambely. Is that even a word?

[Geofizz]

Thank you atozmama and startparticle for your thoughts. You both have my deepest sympathies for your losses.

This topic was the true motivation for the thread I started 2 weeks ago on protecting your mental state in pregancy. Someone I know in real life (and on MDC) lost her son 2 weeks ago and it started me on an emotional downward spiral. I wanted to start a conversation without alerting folks here to what had happened to one of our own who might not otherwise be aware of it.

During my first pregnancy, my primary worry was an unnecessary c-section. Since reading MDC more and more (a habit started while pumping milk when DD was tiny) I have slowly come to "know" women who have suffered the kinds of losses we hope never have to experience. MDC has lifted a veil of ignorance from my eyes, and I've learned that losses happen to real people. They happen to good people. They happen to people who have done everything right. Before I think I could look at statistics and think "yeah, but that won't be me." I think that the women who post so openly and honestly on the pregnancy and birth loss forum really do the community a huge service by simply being here and letting their emotions show. I've learned a lot about how to treat people in times of all sorts of emotional need from these women.

The work I had to do in my first pregnancy was to learn my body and learn to trust it. In a lot of ways, I think it did help me avoid an unnecessary c-section (DD came flying out after a 5 hour labor -- a week after my water broke). The work I have to do during this pregnancy is to learn to get back in tune with my body and remember how to trust it. I know a lot more about issues of pregnancy and delivery now, so it seem as though the mental work I need to do is to deal with issues that truely are out of my control, and this is a huge issue I have absolutely no control over.

Would I be better off not reading these stories now? Maybe, maybe not. I would be more ignorant of the most horrible outcomes of a pregnancy, but I would have less understanding of the vast array of outcomes that happen to truely good people, undeserving of such horrible results.

I think that we grow a lot as people when we're pregnant because we're stepping into a new phase of life. This is a time to learn more about ourselves and those around us. Women who have lost babies are often invisible in our society, so I think that by reading their stories here we have the opportunity to grow and learn in a way we wouldn't otherwise.

[Spark]

ATozmama and Starparticle thank you for sharing your stories and your heart so much with us. I'm so sorry that your babes are not in your arms to hold.

I actually struggled more with the idea of birth loss earlier in pregnancy. Now at this point, I really can not think about it. I feel so attached to this baby now. The thought of losing him or her is just too much to bear right now. That said, I've had a nagging feeling all pregnancy, but I don't know if it was compounded by also having a complicated pregnancy. Either way, I've come to an understanding with this baby. I'll be it's mother and love it for whatever journey it needs to take. My job is not to put expectations on it, but rather love it for whatever it is.

Here's a thread I posted a while ago about not being able to shake the feeling that this baby wasn't going to make it. http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=306869 There is SO MUCH wonderful advice and information on the thread. It's certainly worth a read if you're feeling concerned over the welfare of your baby.

[iris0110]

Thank you so much Starparticle and AtoZmama for posting about this. It is nice to share a DDC with others who are experiencing PAL. Here is my story

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=106763

When I was pregnant with Arawyn i found myself drawn one day to the Pregnancy and Birth Loss board. I had never even noticed it existed before that day. The only posts I saw were posts about misscarriage and I sighed a bit and thought "well I am too far along for a misscarriage". I was right, but I wrongly assumed that because I couldn't have a misscarriage it meant I couldn't lose a baby. I was totally unprepared two weeks later when I found out that Arawyn had died. I didn't understand what stillbirth was, or that it still happened in our oh so technilogically advanced society. As I recovered and grieved from my loss I wondered if I had brought it on myself by visiting that forum (like I had jinxed my pregnancy) or if my visiting that forum was my subconciouses way of telling me that my baby was going to die. Of course there was no way for my subconcious to know that, but I have often wondered if Arawyn wasn't trying in her own way to let me know. I definately knew that the board existed when I needed it most, and that was a great help.

[rapscallions]

star particle and everyone,
thank you for your posts. thank you for thoughtful and sensitive answers. i ache for your loses. and again, my apologies if i offended -- i think having had two miscarriages (weeks 10 and 12), i just can't even touch stillbirth or postpartum loss and so i guess i lurk most of the time rather than let moms there know i'm reading their stories. like you said, it surprises you to know someone who hasn't lost children is hanging out there... (i'm not a complete lurker by the way and i believe, tho excuse my muddled preggo brain if i'm wrong, that a long while back, i posted a message of my sadness for you???)

from these responses, i have learned above all that we are as individual in our feelings and processing of pregnancy as we all are in real life. that is what makes MDC such a cool place to be -- we share our bond in our love for our kids but we all bring such a variety of thoughts and experiences to that common denominator.

one of my closest friends -- after i had a miscarriage scare with this pregnancy -- told me that until the baby is safe in your arms, you don't realize you've been holding your breath for nine months. here's to breathing easy now and again, but strength for those days when we're holding on tight!

thanks again and :hug to all --

(edited to say thank you claire for that link to your discussion on nagging feeling that something isn't right... i hope that some of that sensation has subsided for you but i also thank you for sharing what you have been going through. the people who answered you had some great insights!)

[Taedareth]

I like the concept from Birthing From Within that a worry is something to be worked through and not ignored. What would you do if this happened? I also think that because birth and a newborn brings the capacity of such joy, there is also the capacity equally great sorrow. Kind of like positive and negatives, ying and yang balances in life, mabey in an intuitive sense a pregnant mama knows this and needs to explore it some.

Before this pregnancy I had an urgent need to learn about other women's experiences of child loss. Just about every woman I know has had at least one miscarried baby and know the chances are high that I'll experience it myself at some point. I just really wanted to be emotionally prepared for that contingency. And also, our culture never TALKS about the grief of child loss. Well-meaning people will say the most incomprehensible things to a grieving couple; many people simply can't understand that losing a child in-utero is just as real as losing one after birth. So my purpose was two-fold: I wanted to learn what I can say/do to be sensitive when another woman experiences loss, and I wanted to be prepared for it myself.

So I read a book called Letters to Gabriel about a mama whose baby needed surgery in-utero and then was born premature and couldn't survive. Even though I haven't experienced loss myself, hearing about another woman's experiences helped me understand in a second-hand way what it's like, so I can be compassionate to others and have sort of a mental road map through the grief if I ever find myself in that place.

I was really afraid to get emotionally attached to this baby during the first trimester because of all the statistics I'd read about most miscarriages occurring in the first 3 months, blah blah blah. So the pregnancy seemed surreal to me for a long time. I finally talked with DH about it and he asked me what I thought might be worse - to never get emotionally connected with our baby and then lose it and feel sad/guilty that I'd never allowed myself to love him or her while he/she was alive, or to get emotionally attached and then have to experience the grieving process afterward. So we cried together for a while and then I decided to finally start filling out the baby album (until that point I'd left it blank just in case...)

At this point though, I'm not plagued with fears of loss. Reading that book and talking with DH about my fears has helped me explore those concerns adequately for now. I'm not worried about this baby anymore. I think he/she is healthy (although there's always the vague worry about congenital health conditions). If we have a stillbirth down the road, I think that working through my concerns early on will help me face the loss.

[joesmom]

I am not pregnant, but I read those posts sometimes & :cry: . If I see something in the View New Posts, then I might go to the forum. I usually try to say something to the mom who has suffered the loss, I cannot even imagine the pain.

I think fearing miscarriage is normal. I kind of expected it to happen to me because my mom suffered 2 losses before carrying me almost to term.

:hug to all the moms who have gone through this.

[kir]

I do not feel like reading those discussions nowadays, meg, but at the beginning of this pregnancy i read a lot of stuff -- on mdc and elsewhere -- about birth loss. I couldn't BELIEVE i was pregnant, i couldn't believe we were having twins....I was sure it wasn't going to last. i can't even explain it. I felt this simultaneous fear of these babies, and a strange sort of dedication and love. It's not that i wanted to lose them, but i was so sure and scared that i wasn't ready to take care of two babies. i would talk to them and tell them i was going to try so hard, but i hoped they'd understand that i was just SO SCARED! I would read stories about "vanishing twin syndrome" (where one just goes away, very early on, with no sign of an actual "miscarriage") and about women's lack of commitment/acceptance to the babies causing some problems...I felt really guilty about not being totally into the pregnancy, but also scared that i should not be the one having a baby. It's so complicated.

Anyway, i don't think it was a voyeuristic thing, but it was more like a way of understanding what could happen, and it made me aware (as some PP's have said) of how different people's relationships are to their unborn babies and how it's something that evolves as you go through pregnancy. Now that i have met more people at MDC it's not as much a faceless thing when i read such stories, so i don't do it. Do you know what i mean? But i still have a hard time reading things about "life in the NICU" and other things that are more of a reality/likelihood for a twin mom at this stage in things.

And now that i'm almost at 28 weeks :) i have to say that i understand the way the attachment to babies evolves...obviously it's not the same for everyone, but now my DH and i are so excited to meet these twins and we are so concerned for their growth and size and comfort and everything.....I'm really starting to ramble, so i'm just going to stop before this starts making no sense at all.

[bobacat]

I usually just lurk here....actually have never posted in the due date section before because I'm not really crunchy. :) But I post in the pregnancy loss section occasionally. I lost my first baby around 25 weeks and am now 28 weeks pregnant with my second. Personally, I'm glad that people educate themselves that loss can happen--even late in pregnancy. I NEVER imagined that it would happen to me. There was nothing to really indicate that I would have a problem with the pregnancy. I knew that it could happen, but I always assumed that something was probably kind of wrong with the woman or the baby...but that's not always the case. Weird, crazy things do happen. And it is a really long painful journey after it does. One of the hardest things afterwards was that I felt abnormal and broken, so I think it's good to see people learning and understanding that loss happens to normal people.

Also....I will just use this thread as my soapbox. (Sorry.) I see so many posts here judging people's birthing decisions. During my first pregnancy I was very focused on pregnancy, but I didn't realize until after I lost the baby that none of that stuff really mattered when it came down to it. I would have gone through anything if my baby could have lived.
Roxanne

[kir]

I think you are right, roxanne, with that reminder. i have been really obsessed with what the birth will be like, and people have had to remind me that if my health and the babies' health is a question, i have to consider that the birth itself might not be what i expected....but that it could make it possible for us to have a different future together. it's hard to keep that in mind sometimes....