Widows and Widowers of Mumsnet Unite. Time for a bit of support.

[Yorkiegirl]

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was widowed in october last year - and am coming to the end of my pregnancy - 6 more weeks to go. have any of you done the baby delivering thing without husband there? i'm struggling to cut my own toenails let alone push a baby out and find a name for him!

Hi there shouldhave ... so sorry to hear about your loss. I was widowed whilst pregnant just over two years ago.

My birth went ok, I had 2 birth partners, really close friends of mine. DS is my first so didn't have anything to compare with, how about you, do you have other DCs already?

I have lots of (probably too much!) advice, let me know if you have any questions etc and we can talk more. Would be very happy to help in any way I can. DS is coming up to 2 and we cope - pretty well, most of the time!

Have you joined WAY or looked at the merrywidow website? Sometimes you need to separate out being pregnant from being widowed (which I didn't find easy) and concentrate on YOU.

this will be baby no. 4. i have asked a friend to be birth partner but not sure if that will be worse, as she will obviously not be dh. and am hoping for home birth which i've done for both my dd's. just bit concerned about sheer volume of hormones and emotions which will hit!
have looked at way and merrywidow briefly but not really got into them.

I think - without wanting to be insensitive - that whoever you have, even if it is just midwives, it will of course be worse because you cannot have the one person you really want there.

Do you think it might be better to go for a hospital birth - make it different from the ones you had before? Obviously I don't know if you're likely to labour quickly or if you hate hospitals so might be a crap suggestion. I had an epidural and actually managed to sleep during labour so wasn't as drained as I might have been afterwards. and having the clinical (though very kind people) side of things kept it a bit less emotional.

Please make sure you ahve lots of support for the weeks after the birth - the first week in particular - obviously hormones raging too - was a real rollercoaster and I needed the break of people being around to lift me out of myself, as well as the quiet and contemplative times to just be with ds. Not a lot you can do about hormones though - some of my NCT (and non-widowed) friends seemed to cry a lot more through early stages than I did!

Do you have family nearby to help with your other dcs and all the domestic stuff when dc4 arrives? Homestart is supposed to be very good too, they don't operate in my borough but that's worth a look - see www.home-start.org.uk/ .

have to go and eat dinner but will be back in a while if you want to keep chatting this evening.

thanks bb - i feel like my head's in a right muddle. i'm crap at accepting help - and the bottom line is that i don't really want anyone else except dh here.
mum is coming up near my due date, and whilst she is great - she is not a great emotional support. but actually have lots of great mummy-friends who i suspect will be coming round a lot. and i guess i need to let them do that without protesting that i'm ok!!
not keen on the hospital thing - ds was born in hospital, but home is much better but i understand where you're coming from. my other problem is dh was in same hospital and autopsy was done there - so not keen to go there if i can avoid it.
i'm not really sure what i was looking for when i posted - but it feels great to know someone has been there and survived to tell the tale.
how is it 2 years on? what have you told ds about his daddy?
i need to go to bed now, but would love to know more

hello again. it is strangely comforting isn't it when you find out you're not the only person who's done / been through this before.

if you do nothing else have a look at www.greenwidow.com which is a book written online with accounts from five or six women widowed whilst pregnant. helped me a lot, just to know I wasn't alone as it were.

totally get where you're coming from re going to hospital after all that you and your dh went through so agree you don't want to put yourself through further emotional upheaval. if you think having a friend there will not work for you, then don't. I think I'm right in saying that with homebirths you get 2 midwives and of course they are there with you rather than whizzing in and out of other delivery rooms, so that might be the right thing for you? have you spoken to your mw at all about what you might need?

i'm very crap at askign for help too, I don't know why it's so hard but it really is isn't it. also the help is rarely there at the precise minute you need it. don't be proud though. I found text messages a good way to alert friends or family to the fact that I felt really awful, or needed help - and virtually impossible to just pick up the phone and call.

I haven't told ds much yet because he's still a bit young to understand. it is heartbreakign when he points to other men and says Daddy - he knows who Daddy is from photos and can pick him out, but obviously hears friends saying it to their fathers and copies them. he said it to our neighbour and to a delivery man the other day, also says it to my childminder's husband. I don't read much into it in terms of what he means by it, I think it's like him pointing at people in the street and saying "man" but it is hard for me to hear.

As ds gets older my plan is simply to say "daddy died so we can't see him, but he loved you very much" - even though my dh didn't get to see ds (I was 5 months pg when he died) we had talked about how we already loved our baby even though he hadn't been born, so that seems like a good and true thing to say.

How old are your ds and dds? How are they doing? It is so hard for everyone and I really feel for you.

Chat tomorrow hopefully - will check back in tomorrow evening.

thanks for website bb - makes for v emotional reading
my ds is 7, and my dd's are 5 and 2. it has been v hard having to talk and explain things to them, but in some ways it helps me. i can't bury my head in the sand as one of them is always saying something about daddy.
but it does mean i am absolutely shattered! i am also being a horrible mummy - grumpy and shouty and crying all the time. poor kids! and then i start feeling guilty and beating myself up about it - and that just makes me feel worse!
anyway,
yes you do get 2 midwives for home births - one from the west of the city and one from the east - who will not have read my file and so i will have to explain my circumstances - blah blah blah. not an ideal, but hey, what is at the moment.
sorry - prob need to get some sleep. dd1 been off school, and up in night poorly so that's just adding to tiredness.
thanks for listening!

hey there, sorry only just seen this, actually managed to go to bed early last night.

please don't worry about being a "horrible mummy" - you're not horrible but you are grieving and tired and anxious about the birth. do you have anyone around who can help? someone who can take the dcs out to the park for an hour or two and give you the chance to be on your own and have some quiet time? I so feel for you, it is tiring enough without having the weight of grief crushing you all the time.

on the mw / file thing - I suggest that you write something in big black letters across the front of your notes, or on a sticker that you shove on the front. I think I put something like "Please note that my husband died when I was 5 months pregnant." It really worked because they do notice it there rather than something inside.

Will you get HV visits after the birth? Would get a friend to call the HV team and let them know. My HV was lovely but had no idea and when I had to tell her about DH she said "you're jokin' me?!" - obviously just a phrase, she didn't really think I was joking, but would have been good if she'd known in advance.

Will post again if I can think of anything else useful, am here to help if at all possible.

I was widowed 6 years ago. I live in New Zealand as my late DH was brought up here. We'd moved out here 4 years prior to his diagnosis, he was very ill for 2 1/2 years before he died. I was left with a 2 year old and found it very difficult to cope emotionally. I wasn't thinking things through properly and too quickly moved in with a very nice, kind man plus his 2 kids who live with us 50%of the time. This scenario works - to an extent! I just don't feel very comfortable in New Zealand or really very comfortable with myself and just bitterly regret losing my husband (his cancer was mis diagnosed for years and when it was finally identified it was already stage four - I've since won compensation money for it which, I assure you, doesn't compensate in the least). I'm very fond of my new P but don't feel love for him like I did my H. I'm going off his kids too and am putting in place strategies to spend less time with them than I have been. All in all - I'm very confused about how best to live now. I come from a very small family and I have very few friends. I'm looking for advice / reassurance/a kick up the bum - sorry to burden you all with this.