Do you ever have those days where you just can't stop obsessing about what happened in the past?
Letely I keep thinking about the day we were flying back from visiting my parents after Christmas 2007. I was 18 or 19 weeks pregnant with Ellie at the time. We were running late and YaYa had to go to the bathroom. I was carrying a bunch of carry on bags and YaYa trying to hurry down the ocncourse to the bathrooms. I suddenly felt a sharp stabbing pain in my lower abdomen. It wasn't so terrible that I couldn't stand it - but it wasn't pleasant either. I couldn't stand or sit or lay comfortably for several days. And then no more than a week later came our terrible ultrasound when we found out Ellie didn't have any amniotic fluid.
Now when I think back on it I wonder if I did something that caused part of the placenta to seperate and started the avalanche of IUGR, oligohydramnio, and PE. I can't seem to get it out of my mind that maybe trying to do more than I should have done is what caused everything to go wrong with Ellie's pregnancy. Everyone told me to slow down - but I never listened. I was goingt o be super pregnant woman.
I never mentioned it to the Dr's at the time because the connection just never really dawned on me at the tiem. But it hit me recently for some reason and now I can't shake the thought. I'm going backwards I guess... back to the blame and the guilt of the early days after Ellie's death.
It feels like crap. I've been in a major funk all week. For no real reason either. I should be celebrating. Everything seems to be going so well this time. But somehow that just makes me feel worse about what happened to Ellie. Why does one baby get to live and the other doesn't?
4 comments:
Honest answer Donna, check with the pe board, but no. Not at all. PE starts with conception, when the placenta doesn't dig in deeply. And when you get that bad of an abruption, you'd know. You couldn't miss it.
I'm sorry, I know the guilt is hard.
I understand the feelings of guilt, 100%. I also thought I would be super-pregnant-woman, and you do think back over everything . . . But. We both know (in our heads, not our hearts) there was nothing we did to cause what happened. And there's nothing we could have done differently to prevent it. But I do get it. ((Hugs))
I wish I knew the whys... Truly I do. But you did nothing wrong. You didnt cause anything. I know that doesnt ease the guilt. On the night that Nicholas was born, I went to the grocery store. I had picked up dinner items and somethings for my lunch. I think, all together, I had four, light bags. They were canvas, so I stuck 2 on each shoulder and lumbered to the car in the rain that was turning into snow. I was so winded on the very short walk to the car that I called Peter and asked him to meet me to get the bags. Less than an hour later, I was in labor, after standing in the kitchen, cooking dinner. I still, still to this day, feel guilty about that grocery shopping trip. And I know that I have IC and that I dilate that early now, b/c of Alexander's pregnancy, but still... The guilt... It's there.
I know that nothing we can say will remove that from you, but counter those negative thoughts with the 100% truth: You are a good mother. You love your children. You have always put them first and done EVERYTHING for them. You are a supermom.
I go back to the guilt tripping all the time- I was like you, trying to be super pregnant. I worked 40 hours on my feet despite being tired at the end of the day; I was going to keep going until I was 36 weeks along. I wonder if any of that stress I put on my body led to the abruption. I don't know, I'll never know. I wish I could find out why (the doctor's could never find a reason why it happened), because if I did, I would do everything in my power to not to do it again the next time I get pregnant.
I'm so glad things are going so well this pregnancy. I hope things continue to go well.
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