I belong to a message board for women due at the same time as me - September. Earlier this week, unfortunately, a mom gave birth to a little girl at 24 weeks. I can't imagine being in her shoes and my heart really goes out to her, she will have a long/hard road in the NICU and beyond.
I can't respond to the messages of support - I feel badly about not being able to reach out to her but the majority of the other posts are "my cousins friends sisters finance's brother's wife had a little girl at 23 weeks last year - she's 12 months now and TOTALLY PERFECT! No problems at all!" (really, at a year old you can say that?) or "My sister and I were born at 29 weeks 30 years ago and we're totally fine now" (Can you really compare 29 weeks to 24 weeks?), and the most hurtful "Preemie's do so well now - they just need time to grow outside for a while and she'll be just fine!"... ya, that's what my daughter NEEDED... she needed to be outside of me in order to grow.
So how do I respond with "I'm very sorry you are in this position - your NICU rollercoaster will be very hard and you can expect lots of ups and downs. You'll have a big learning curve but don't underestimate how well your daughter can do or even if she falls in with the normal course of a 24 weeker and has trouble for a while. I wish you the best and feel free to email me if you want to talk"... I did and immediately got pelted with all sorts of messages from others saying I was being too negative blah blah blah.
It's amazing how prematurity wears such rose colored glasses to the general public... well, no its not really amazing in a good way.
Seeing pictures of her little girl - with a preemie diaper up to her armpits despite an umbilical line - make me so sad for all preemies. Who's life needs to start being poked, prodded and having a tube shoved down your throat? I cried seeing her pictures. I'm so very scared of putting another baby through that but its practically out of my control and thats even more scary.
Friday, May 23, 2008
I just can't respond...
Posted by Jennifer at 2:30 PM
Labels: General Pregnancy, Premature Birth
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Hi Jennifer,
My advice: you did the right thing. The other moms mean well but have no idea.
Send her the URL to our group, offline if you can. She may need it. And let her know that there are parents of NICU babies as well as older kids; she may be looking for hope, or she may be seeking reality. Either way, she'll get a good dose of both from our blogs/group if she chooses to pursue this.
My heart goes out to her. None of us should ever be in this place.
Abby
Well I am right there with you sister. As you know Aiden was a 24 weeker and you are NOT being negitive. Having a preemie is not somethng you can wear rose colored glasses for. If you do then you are making it even harder on yourself.
Here is a scary fact Ijust learned. And it breaks my heart cause it proves to me that even medical people just have no idea or are detached from babies until they are born.
A friend of mine is 19 almost 20 weeks and he baby might have some serious issues. I won't get into details or this comment would be super long lol. So I asked her at this point why put yourself through so much if there is nothing you can do. (I thought the abortion cut off was 20 weeks) and not that I am a pro life or pro choice ranter, cause I am not. So here is what killed me. I found out that you have until 24 weeks to terminate.
That killed me, it still does!! That was my Aiden. A little girl is viable at 23 weeks and a boy at 24. How in the world could anyone do an abortion on someone at 24 weeks.
It breaks my heart. For the record my friend didn't have one and has chosen not to. What ever god gives her is what she will deal with.
And I always though they were going to lower the time frame from 20 weeks to 18, not increase it to 24.. I'm still in shock.
having actually been there gives us a completely different perspective on what the NICU is really like. I'm not sure there is even anything you can do or say to prepare someone for that experience. All I can do is pray for those moms and babies.
Post a Comment