I'm feeling truly heartbroken and can't stop crying but I need to talk and ask some questions (questions are in the last paragraph, in case you don't have time or want to read it all). I'm not feeling well, emotionally and physically, so this might not make a lot of sense. I also feel suicidal. I will not act on my feelings/urges and it isn't solely because of losing my son - I don't know what I want from this message - I think it is as basic as talking to someone about my confusion with love, and because I can't talk to my children about how I still feel (they are all so loving, compassionate, thoughtful and I am so lucky to have them in my life. I don't see them often due to distances between us. 2 of them live abroad, the other in a different county).
I have no-one to talk to as I don't have any friends and no other family apart from mother and sister who I have distanced myself from for my mental health.
Sorry for rambling.
In summer 1984 my 3rd baby, my 3rd son, was stillborn. I don't want to share what exactly happened but they deliberately misrepresented his gestation to avoid recording it as a stillbirth. His gestation had caused queries earlier in the pregnancy and scans at 16 weeks confirmed his due date and that fit in perfectly with the contraception failure.
At 36 weeks he was delivered weighing 1189g. They confirmed at delivery he was very small for dates, but later later denied this, and recorded he was a 28 week delivery. They told me he had to be 28 weeks and one day to be stillborn. He was recorded as a spontaneous abortion and a funeral was denied. He was also part of the retained baby organs scandal and I still cannot accept what happened. I have posted about this under a different name just before his birthday last year (and changed dates so I wouldn't be identified).
I'm rambling. Sorry.
My daughter was born 1 year, 2 hours and 20 minutes after my stillborn son. Every year their birthday breaks my heart but makes me feel so incredibly lucky and proud to have such an amazing daughter and also sad for her as she shares her birthday with a dead sibling she never met. (daughter, if you find and read this, you amaze me every single birthday with your compassion and love x x x).
Losing my son changed me, and the way I parented, for the good. All 3 say what an amazing incredible loving and caring mum I am so I know I did OK as a parent.
2 of my children have very young children {8 months and 6 months) and the other is expecting their first in a couple of months. I am so fortunate. And very much in love with them all!!! But I cannot talk about stillbirth when they are at this stage in parenthood.
As their birthday nears I am having all the heightened emotions. But, I cannot work this one out... I really hope someone can help me work this out.
How can I love my baby son so much when I never really knew him? I never heard his cry, saw him move, saw him look at me and my only physical contact was brief and because the midwife missed the delivery. She was really angry, said I can't be going and touching him like that because I scooped him up and held his close.
The logical stuff feels incredibly irrational and doesn't make sense.
Last week my son who is expecting his 1st soon acknowledged that he can't bear to think about the pain I must have gone through. I told him that I don't think any of us realise how much we build up our hopes and dreams for our children well before they are born.
My questions, that are torturing me:
Do you think maybe thinking I Iove him is just because of these (probably unrealistic) hopes and dreams I had and that I can't possibly love him as I didn't know him?
Do you think I am mixing up this unbearable love with what I pictured his life to be? So, like I am in love with the dreams, not the person because I never knew him as a person?
How can it hurt so much after 35 years? It is so raw, the crying really feels like it is tearing me apart.
Is there any way, with less than 2 weeks til his birthday, that I can find a way to get through his birthday without these overwhelming urges and picturing his lovely little face and replaying his delivery in my mind? I can't face it again.
Thank you so much for reading. I may not answer responses quickly, but I will answer as soon as I can. Thank you.