Skip to main content

Preemie Mom: Grief from pregnancy and delivery

I don’t have baby fever. Nope, not at all. Instead I’m the person tagging my husband on the story of the vasectomy celebration thrown by a wife for her husband. Complete with the snip snip hooray cake.

However, when I see a big pregnant belly or hear of a mom talking about packing her hospital bag, the twinges come. This is when the twinges of grief and dare I say envy come in every now and then.

I’m a preemie mom. As preemie mom I lost out on the last three months of pregnancy. I just got to the third trimester in time to have my pregnancy unexpectedly come to an end. Suddenly, gone was my time to spend with my oldest as I savored the last little bit of him as my only little boy, my baby. Gone was the time of planning and prepping the nursery. And yes, gone was the time of sleepless nights, crazy feeling hiccups, heart burn, and aches and pains. Basically the unpleasant but proud markers of pregnancy.

I lost out on so much. I didn’t get to post to social media asking for everyone’s hospital bag must haves as I contemplated what I should pack for the hospital as I didn’t even pack a hospital bag. My hospital bag came from my mother in law driving an hour to our house and trying to find everything we told her over the phone.

As crazy as it may sound I missed out on experiencing a vaginal birth as I had with my first. Bringing him into this world is a moment I will never forget and one I couldn’t wait to have again with our second. Instead it was an emergency c with me not knowing if my baby would make it.

Gone was the golden hour as my baby would be handed to me. I would get my first glances of him as he was laid upon my chest. Then longer glances and a longer meeting with my new little man as I would work to breastfeed him for the first time. This anticipated golden hour was replaced with knowing 1) we probably wouldn’t hear him cry and 2) I probably wouldn’t see him for hours later.

I will always be thankful that even at the time of his birth that Kaleb was doing his own thing as I did hear him cry and he was stable enough for them to bring him around for me to have a quick look. Even though it about made me sick being wheeled across the hospital, I convinced my nurse to take me to the NICU just a couple of hours later. I needed to see him, to see this baby that should have been inside me but I was unable to keep safe. To see him would perhaps make it seem real. I began to process this new reality as I laid a hand on my now empty womb.

I say that to say a few things. One, is to share the journey of a preemie mom. Another, is to caution people to think about what they say to preemie moms. Things such as, “You look great, at least you didn’t have to gain a lot of weight.” For the longest time big, beautiful baby bumps made me want to cry. I might not have gained as much weight from pregnancy but it felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. “Be glad you didn’t have to go through the last months, they are the hardest.” I would have given anything to have gone through them. I would also laugh and say you obviously don’t know how hard the NICU journey is, trust me it’s harder.

Finally, I am glad that PTSD is being recognized and talked about more and more with our NICU parents. But I want to say that for many it’s not just the trauma of the NICU, with the monitors, health concerns, and sometimes difficulty with bonding. The experience and trauma with the NICU can go much deeper to their pregnancy and delivery. Just like with me, it can also come with grief over the loss of the rest of your pregnancy and over your inability to keep them safe.

So while I am not getting baby fever and instead I’m over here celebrating only one more year of daycare costs and (most nights) getting more sleep, I still sometimes struggle with the pregnancy, labor and delivery, and early baby days that I missed out on.

*Amanda created Mighty Miracles Foundation to support and empower NICU families especially moms as they work to process this new unexpected journey. They primarily do this through free care packages given to families. Visit www.mightymiraclesfoundation.org to learn how to help and give back to NICU families. 
Labels:

Comments

  1. EJMarch 13, 2019 at 8:03 PM

    I absolutely relate, the NICU journey was terribly hard, as expected, but mentally it is harder for me to cope with missing out on the rest of my pregnancy and my body “failing” my son. Thank you for writing this.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My letter to Alex Gordon

Alex, I wanted to share a few pictures with you that show why I'm writing to thank you. You see my three year old, Kaden, knows more about baseball and the Royals than many adults I know. He loves as he would put it "all of the Royals" but without a doubt, without any hesitation when asked who is his favorite player is his answer is always one player; you.  I'm not kidding when I say Gordo was one of his first words. In fact anything baseball for the longest time was called Gordo. I'm not exactly sure why he took such a liking to you. I joke it's because his first ever game at the K and you hit a grand slam when he was not even a year old. For what ever reason he adores you. He even has a little Gordo plush doll that he likes to take everywhere.  This past year has been the toughest year for our family. Our second son, Kaleb, was born 12 weeks early at 2lb 2oz. We also learned of his diagnosis of Down syndrome two days after his birth. He spent...
5 comments
Read more

Home

Sitting here in Kaleb's nursery rocking him I look around his room and think about how many people have contributed to his room. How incredibly loved he is. I look at the decals I searched for and then put up with the help of his daddy. The chair I am sitting in given to us by Heather who sometime soon I will trust to oversee his care during the day. The little bear on the nightstand that Haley helped me pick out for him before we left the NICU. On the bookshelf sits the Curious George from Nana. I also see the Panda bear from Rance, Jessica, and Heath.  Baskets purchased while shopping with Courtney. Even the cart that his Grammy and Gramps found so that we could put all of his medical equipment on so that we could wheel it around the house. Everything in his room all the way down to the baseboards and doors finished by Daddy and Dalton were a work of love as we prepared the room for our little K2. The NICU family print that will soon be on the wall above his dresser, signed by th...
3 comments
Read more

Extra Chromosome and All

When I began my blog I admitted that while people were often commenting on my positive outlook I am not always sailing through on a cloud of positivity. I struggle, I have days where the reality of the past five months sets in or the uncertainty of the future can seem daunting. I told myself that if I were going to write about our journey that I would be open and honest, and that includes the hard moments. The moments, days, or weeks when the emotions hit. Some might wonder why I would write and share those moments with people. Why I would open myself up to that level of vulnerability, especially when those who know me know how I value my independence and strength. In those first few days after Kaleb was born and we had received the diagnosis of Down syndrome I had many emotions that I was ashamed of feeling. “What loving person would ever have these feelings?” would often go through my head and result in me feeling even worse. They were feelings that I could not even bring myself t...
1 comment
Read more