For not wanting a sliver of pain during childbirth (support for stillbirth)

[karmathreefold]

and then wanting extreme agony as punishment?

It's my fault... I knew the baby wasn't as active as usual, yet I thought it was OK.

I had a friend who had a stillbirth & she told me to check out any reduced movements - which I did, for my son, DD & in this pregnancy.

But I fucking didn't on tuesday, and I waited till the evening, when I knew it should be more active till I went to hospital.

So now I have to give birth to it. It's fully formed at 37 weeks gestation. If I'd got to hospital on time it could have maybe been saved.

I don't want to feel pain giving birth; yet I feel I deserve it, why not after it's all my fault.

I've never felt such pain as I do no, so maybe even a drugs-free labour would be less painful.

Oh god, I don't want this pain, I can't stand it

karma, the only thing I will say is that I didn't want to go out at all after Sylvie-Rose died. But my Mum eventually went home leaving me with the four boys so I had to. But I did find that when I went down to the school to pick up ds3, that the other mums were just lovely to me, some of them invited me out for walks and coffee and have said to pop over if I need to chat. Women can be wonderful that way.

karma, I cry so much, everywhere. I guess I just don't care what people think. Right now, that is the last thing on my mind!! I do find that if I sit at home too long, I spiral downwards badly, so I have to get out of the house and do something to preoccupy myself. It doesn't matter what, as long as it stops me thinking for even a little while.

But yes, direct interaction with others can be very hard. Phonecalls from friends 'checking' in can be hard too. However, by telling everyone as widely as possible that Mia has died means that people are being very understanding - it is short-circuiting a lot of tricky situations. Yet perhaps the kindness of strangers might be useful to you if you aren't being listened to at home? I'm sure that there would be hugs and kind words for you, if you were to explain that you have lost Tamsin and you are hurting. There are kind, lovely people in the RW, I promise.

Karma, I am local to the Child Bereavement Charity too, which is what Child Bereavement Trust is now called. They run training courses for professionals, but do offer direct support to families living in Buckinghamshire.

Karma sadly there is no blueprint for how to deal with this. No right or wrong. But can I echo Miasmummy and Chip and say getting out in to the RW again although scary might surprise you. I've had more random hugs and kind words from people in that last 12 weeks than I've had in the last 30 years. People will hopefully astonish you with their kindness and compassion to your situation. Sure some will feel awkward but that is their problem not yours. Most, especially other mums, will treat you gently and kindly.

Child bereavement is not often talked about but you may be surprised how many people have a friend, sister, aunt or even themselves that have lost a child. I think because you h has not been very supportive you may feel no-one will be. I can understand that but he is definitely the exception not the rule.

Thank you all, I realise that I was being really nasty with regards to meeting others, I do realise that I need to get out - it's just that I always hated toddler groups (always did even with DS).

I just feel so 'panicky' today, just really, really faint. I'm worried sick about everything now, and just scared lots of bad things are going to happen. I've actually got an appointment with the GP tomorrow, as I haven't been sleeping, and I know that things are getting out of hand. Everytime I think of the caesarean I now panic, I feel an impending sense of doom, it's pre-occupying my thoughts.

chip I read about your experience at the gym, on the child bereavement thread, you're really brave, I wish I could do that. I do think that exercising (once I've had my postnatal check) would do me good, maybe take DD swimming, or to toddler gym, rather than toddler groups, something different, that I didn't do when pregnant, so it has no associations.xx

Karma, those steps you are making sound positive to me - GP appointment, new activities with DD, getting out.

I'd really like some advice, I guess I should go to the relationship board, but I feel so stupid, and know I should just go, but feel paralysed.

Basically, I've already said that things with DH haven't been great - well they're worse, they have been for two nights, really, really bad, and it is my fault.

The night before last, I got upset when DH said he was going to his voluntary job. When I told DH this, and the reasons why (that I blamed him for being so attached to the place, that we missed the antenatal appoinment the day Tamsin died, and I do wonder if she could have been alive then or not, and that I hated him being with his ex). He told me that his ex no longer works there.

He was tired, and because I'd pushed the wrong buttons he slapped my face . I came downstairs, but he followed, phoned my parents (at 1.30am) and told them I'd gone mad. I told my dad that he'd made my nose bleed, and my dad told me to go to bed (DH told him I was lying). Dad told DH that my mum used to attack my dad with knives (which is true) after she'd been sterilised against her will, and he'd fend her off, and she'd get hurt - which is totally irrelevant imho.

So, with no family support, and in fact worse as they are colluding with DH, I went back to bed just to save myself.

DH did admit later that his ex did work there, then admitted that she has been coming on to him, but that he'd not "noticed" it???

Last night, I went to bed (after falling asleep on the sofa). DH and I cuddled for a while, then I had a 'flashback' and started brying again, DH asked why I was crying, and I was so shocked that he needed to ask (in an irritable tone) that I said nothing. So he turned round, started watching TV and eating chocolate, and I hated lying next to him, so got my stuff to come downstairs, he pushed me on the bed, shouted in my face, then pushed me onto the floor. I ran downstairs, he followed, pulled the cushions off the sofa, and then bent down and farted in my face.

I did tell him that him asking why I was crying was unbelivable, and he said that I wasn't upset about Tamsin whilst asleep on the sofa, wasn't upset when taking my inhalers, and therefore I was really upset about him not doing what I wanted, and I was using Tamsin as an excuse.

Karma, I'm not at all an expert, but do believe you should seek help about all this. Please tell your GP at your appointment today about your H's behaviour and lack of support from your family. They are there as a point of contact for these sorts of situations, as well physical sickness. If necessary, ask one of the reception team to help you follow up on the contacts provided ASAP.

You are not mad. You have lost your baby.

I have no advice for you except to say that your Dh slapping you is completely wrong . I have followed your story but not posted.please get all the professional help that you can,both for your terrible loss and the domestic situation.You should not have to go through all of this nightmare and you need all the support you can get.I wish you well.

Karma I really think you need to get out of there at least for a bit. Do you have any family you could stay with? Or would he move out? It all sounds really toxic. It is never your fault if someone hits you and treats you that way they choose to do that. Not your fault. Did you actually tell him that you blamed him for Tamsin's death? Whilst it absolutely does not excuse his behaviour I can imagine my dp hitting the roof if I said that to him.

How is he with dd1? Is he ever violent towards her? I'm no expert at this but my best advise would be to get out and stay with friends/family. If that's not possible I would call Wonens Aid and discuss it with them. Strangely I think you would get more support and peace in a refuge than you are at home.

karma, please call Women's Aid. Your dh is abusive both emotionally and physcially and you are particularly vulnerable at the moment. Sorry your Dad took his side. Take dd and get out.

Karma my real concern is that your h will continue to alienate you from everyone, tell lies and continue to make out that you cannot/do not care and are not capable of being responsible for DD1.

Please phone womans aid and start making plans to leave with your DD1.

Really my heart goes out to you, I wish you were local to me, if there were anything I could do to help I would. Honestly if any of my friends shed tears for their stillborn children even though some of them were 20 years ago I wouldn't even be thinking they should be over it by now. It's something you learn to live with and live in spite of but it will always be a sad thing.

karma, how are you doing?

I've arranged to go & stay at my mums, when she manages to make room for us (they've just moved into their new house, and are having a chimney put in at the moment). Things between DH and I have settled, it all started when I was awake at 2/3am, and would get in a mood with him, wake him and blame him, or get angry about other things.

The GP gave me an antidepressant, that at low doses acts as a sedative & sleeping agent. It worked, but left me hungover the next day. This increased my agitation. When the effects wore off I started to giggle/laugh manically, which scared DD so much she hid her eyes from me with her hands.

I saw my CPN yesterday, and he said to stop taking it, as antidepressants can make people with bipolar manic, and it does usually start with laughing for me.

I've managed to sleep though, without it (oversleep). I like sleeping, it's less time awake, and having to deal with things. Though my dreams are very disturbing. I dreamt that DS was run over, then Tamsin's body was thrown next to the hedge, behind her grave. I'm now worried about DS. I did tell my CPN that I fear that what I worry about now comes true, as I even told him I was scared of stillbirth, and he'd told me that things were not going to go wrong at my stage of pregnancy...he remembers this. Also I was terrified that the caesarean was going to go wrong, and it did. My GP actually described it as horrific.

I'm seeing the consultant next week, and one of my questions will be why I ended up with an emergency section. I could handle it if they were trying to save Tamsin, but not when they knew she was dead. The fact that they induced me - despite my having a caesarean just a year before, and Tamsin was transverse - all contraindications to induction. That when the pessaries caused contractions, but I was only 2cm dilated they decided to put me on a syntocinon (sp) drip, even though My mum & I both expressed concerns about rupture, and Tamsin was still transverse (impossible to deliver vaginally).

Then (after another 10/11 hours on the drip), they had to do the emergency section & I'd torn at the top of my uterus, where Tamsin was lying.

I've since found out that if using a drip on a patient with a prior section they should only wait a couple of hours before stopping, and that is with a live baby, in cephalic presentation.

The one good thing is I met a lovely woman at the cemetrey. Her DS was stillborn a year ago, and she'd read Tamsin't poem, and had guessed. I hope to see her again, as she really made me feel better.

I'm glad that you're going to your Mum's for a while. It's good that the CPN got you off the anti's so quickly.

Thinking of you x

For the first time I noticed the stone, at the start of the baby section at the cemetery, it said there:

For every baby, lent not given,
That buds on earth, but blooms in heaven.

That really choked me up. I'm slowly coming to accept Tamsin's passing, and that saddens me all over again - I want to remember feeling pregnant with her, I want to still feel the excitement of her coming home - which really has still been there, underneath it all.

I'm really ashamed to say that I've been upset with DD1, who's started playing up at bedtime, once I had patience for her, but now I'm upset that I'm seeing to her, when I want to be up all night with a newborn.

At the same time I'm filled with a new kind of love for DD1, and it's a scary love... I was always overly anxious about her, but now it's more real, as I now know that things do go wrong, and the world can suddenly crumble and that scares me.

And I feel so sorry for everyone else going through it. All you lovely ladies, who know how it feels, and it seems so cruel.

Christmas worries me, it seems even more awful (and that is a ridiculous thing to say, as there is no time that is less awful, but I hope you understand my sentiment, words are inadequate when trying to express feelings), at this time of year... when you're supposed to be full of cheer.

This time of year will never be the same again; autumn was always my favourite time of year. DS was born in the week before Tamsin was, and I can remember so clearly what christmas was like with a tiny baby... hence why this time was my favourite.

Now it'll be DS's birthday, followed by Tamsin's death & birthday, the very next day my dad's birthday, then bonfire night - our wedding anniversary - which was the last day I ever saw Tamsin.

Why, oh why is life so unfair? There are so many, much wanted, much loved babies that leave us

I lost my fourth child just over two years ago, when I was 7 months pregnant. I now have a 10mo baby. Even now, I look at my DS3 and think about what his two year old brother would have thought about him. About what jis brother would have looked like.

I found that a lot of people didn't want to talk to me about Korben, didn't want to acknowledge his existance, couldn't cope with the fact that I wasn't who I used to be before I lost him. I now have a whole new circle of friends, all of whom are the people that WOULD listen to me talk about Korben, would hold me when I was upset and not guff and blow about how I should pick myself up and forget about it (How can you forget about one of your children?).

I am not who I was before I lost Korben, I never will be again. I am a more reflective person, I take the time to enjoy the simple things in life that I wouldn't have stopped rushing through my life to notice before, I have changed, and not all the people I used to be firends with can cope with that. I take pleasure in my other dc's acheivements, but seeing DS3 meeting milestones that Korben never had a chance to reach is bittersweet. I still think about Korben every day, even two years, one month and 15 days down the line.

Your husband is not making this situation any better, I feel. He is hurting too - but is dismissive of your emotions, he is unsupportive, and, dare I say it, IMO is way more responsible for what happened to your darling DD2, Tamsin. He knew you had a bleed, he did not follow medical advice by looking after your DD so that you could rest, he was there at the scan - and HE didn't stick up for you when you are vulnerable.

I do think that at some point in the future, you need to discuss your medical treeatment during your pregnancy and birth with PALS - and maybe take it further when you are strong enough. It seems to me that your ante-natal care was much more focussed around your MH issues than your PREGANCY issues - and that you were ignored, and not taken seriously. I think that your local PCT needs to be aware of this, in order to prevent it happening in future.

Ignore me if you don't feel ready to listen to any of this yet.

I'm so sorry for your loss, and will be thinking of your beautiful DD2, Tamsin Rainbow, every time I think of my wonderful Korben Ian. xxx

I don't know where to post this, maybe better in r/ships?

I've been increasingly depressed (as we all are, so please excuse my selfishness here), and it's getting worse, despite upping the dose of my mood stabiliser (in fact it seems worse since I upped it). I'm also more tired, so tired that it's hard to function.

Last night I cut my arm (to be honest it doesn't look as bad as when I scratched with nails). I was at the end of my tether, DD1 has started waking all the time, and she will only settle if I sit in her room for 30 - 45mins at a time. The minute I even stand she opens her eyes & screams, till I sit down again. And because I am so tired, I cannot cope with it well. I hate sitting there, feeling trapped, whilst she plays her lullabies - which is what happened almost all of my pregnancy with Tamsin, so as well as being physically exhuasted, I'm repeating the times when Tamsin moved the most, and I hate doing it, having such memories of Tamsin kicking, and not having her. The lullaby is also the one we played at her funeral, but DD1 will not go to sleep without it. And last night she woke four time!

After I cut my arm (and DD1 was asleep then, I'd never do it in front of her, or cry in front of her, I feel guilty enough, but please understand I would/could never make her feel bad for my inadequacies), I put the knife on the table, and sat down crying. DH came down, and phoned my parents, to tell them I'd gone nuts (I'd complained to DH that I couldn't cope with DD1 crying, as I wanted a newborn to keep me awake, and I guess I resented that it was DD1 instead, evil person I am). I picked up the knife to put in the kitchen, and he then said out loud "don't come near me with a knife"! He could see I was taking it to the kitchen, it was in the opposite direction, but he said it whilst on the phone to my parents... this has scared me, as now he can get my parents to testify that he said that... I can see no way out now.

The other thing is financial control. Last year I bought him a car, that cost £2000. I had a small amount of savings, from when I run my business (before I had to give up when my bipolar got very bad). He said we needed a safer car for DD1, and I don't drive, so the car is in his name.

He only works part time (due to his depression), and he gets some benefits for us both, and it all goes in his account. I get some CTC, and child benefit. I only pay for the water rates (in fact I paid off the arrears he & his ex wife accrued over several years), and food, and for all DD1's clothes etc. He pays everything else.

I paid for Tamsin's funeral - I didn't think twice about it. DH then claimed it back from DWP (I didn't know he was going to, nor did I want him to, as I wanted to do it for her). So he's got this money into his account. When we sold the double buggy (a nipper 360 which I bought), he sold it on Ebay, and kept the money.

Now he's bought his DS an expensive present for christmas. Because of this (and this makes me evil) I asked him to either pay me the funeral money back, or to give me money to buy my DS a present, and he's refused. I know I'm unreasonable, but it seems unfair that he's got the cost of the funeral - which I paid for, and won't give it me back, telling me that anything I want to buy I have to use CTC and child benefit for - he says that my money is 'our' money, yet the way I see it, he's got extra money, by exploiting our DD's death - if I hadn't paid for it, then he would have, so he'd be the same financially, yet as I paid he's got extra money in his account. And he got a tax rebate of £1000, and hasn't shared it with me...

I know I'm being evil, and don't expect anyone to respond, sorry for typing this

And he says that he's paid me back for the car, as he pays for the petrol, tax etc (even though it comes out of money for both of us), and it's his car - when I leave he'll still have it. In fact he uses it for what he wants, he won't take me to a shop an hour away, but will drive that far to pick up his DS, which is another reason I resent him.

In fact scrub all that, I'm bring too needy, when others have problems and worries, I'm going to withdraw from here, so that I stop having my whingeing here

YOU ARE NOT BEING EVIL. Your husband is being FINANCIALLY, EMOTIONALLY AND PHYSICALLY ABUSIVE.

You DO NOT deserve this. He is dragging you down. Please, please, please get out of this. I have been there, Korben's father was exactly the same (with the added benefit that he kept telling me that I had killed our baby and so deserved to be treated like that).

Please do not let him do this to you. You are NOT evil.

Your husband is not making this situation any better, I feel. He is hurting too - but is dismissive of your emotions, he is unsupportive, and, dare I say it, IMO is way more responsible for what happened to your darling DD2, Tamsin. He knew you had a bleed, he did not follow medical advice by looking after your DD so that you could rest, he was there at the scan - and HE didn't stick up for you when you are vulnerable.

I will expand on this. As soon as I had read on your other thread that you had lost your baby - I BLAMED HIM. He DID NOT put you and Tamsin first. He does not respect you, he is cheating on you, he has emotionally removed himself from your marriage a long time ago - the fact that you saw a solicitor after only being married for 3 months shows this. He is a cheating, abusive wankstain and you deserve better.

PLEASE do not think any of this is your fault. It isn't. I have held back until now from saying what I think of your husband, but I can't any longer when you are hurting so much, and he is STILL being EMOTIONALLY, PHYSICALLY AND FINANCIALLY ABUSIVE.

Please Call Women's Aid. Please.

Karma please listen to HuntyCat. There are people here worried about you.

You are not evil. You do need to get out of there now. Go to your mum's place as you outlined a few days ago.

You are being mentally, physically and emotionally abused. Get out now, tonight. Your mum can help with your daughter, and the financial stuff can be sorted out. Your cutting is a cry for help.

Please. Go. For you, for your daughter, and for Tamsin.

Karma I said this earlier up the thread, I really really think he is setting you up to take dd1 off you if/when you try and leave.

Please phone womans aid.

I too was fuming when I read how he was treating you on the run up to Tamsins birth - not looking after dd1 etc etc. He does have to carry some of the blame for her deat as he ignored the medical advice.

He is financially abusive.

I'm pretty certain he has some sort of involvement with this other woman.

He is treating you awfully my dismissing your feelings.

You are not evil at all, you are struggling as do all people when they have suffered such an awful bereavement.

He still isn't looking after your physical needs either - you are supposed to be resting and recoperating!

As for the financial abuse OMG words just fail me

Perhaps he is actually trying to tip you over the edges...