feeling sad - grieving for the innocence of the first few hours

[madmouse]

Not sure this makes any sense, but i just found myself crying while holding sleeping ds (5.5 months) and still when cleaning the bathroom after.

He was born in theatre with rotational forceps after a long labour. Apgars were 9,10,10 and he did really well despite lots of meconium.

After 12 hours he went blue and it turned out he was fitting. Before we knew it he was in an incubator in NICU, ventilated and soon sedated by a cocktail of drugs. Scans showed that he sustained brain damage and various scenarios were outlined. So far he has defied all expectations and is a very happy smily chatty normal little man. He rolls front to back all the time, almost sits alone, can stand holding your fingers, talks, giggles, is getting to grips with solids and most importantly, despite predictions of blindness sees very well indeed.

So why am I so sad? I feel I am grieving for the sense of innocence of the first hours after the birth, when life seemed so fantastic and amazing. Taking him home after three weeks was terrifying rather than rosy as I was so scared of the fits (that never returned btw). I feel that innocence will not return, as any further pregnancies (and I hope for two more) will be marked by extra checks, scans, probably a caesarian and lots of worry.

Not sure why i am writing all this, but I am home alone and it feels good to write it down. So don't feel you have to reply

If you are still reading, thank you. I would have been lost without mumsnet in those early days.

Glad in a way to have found this thread, madmouse you are certainly not 'mad' You went through one hell of an ordeal you could never have imagined, and it shattered the dream we all hold of perfect birth, perfect baby, perfect childhood etc. You embarked on a very different journey to the one you had dreamt of, and the shock of that will remain with you for some time.

Like others have said you do need to release that grief through writing or talking...in 'RL' or via forums like this.

My DS was born very unexpectedly at 30 weeks due to my PE. Fought hard for 8 wks in SCBU but made it out fine and is now a joyful 3yo. Not even well experienced paediatricians could guess his rocky start in life- these children of ours like to defy expectations! I went on to have another DC- DD was born a year ago. We still didn't get our ideal start, much to my dismay, and to add to that she was a few weeks later diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.

Most of the time I'm fine, live day to day and am incredibly thankful for the largely healthy and definitely happy children I have. But like others have said I go through moments of recollecting my dreams and how they were utterly shattered, the guilt that things didn't work out as well as hoped and the grief too. This is especially triggered by friends being pregnant/births- I know too much now about what can go wrong, I worry incessantly for them and find myself reliving my DCs births and early weeks...and the sadness cuts me right to the core. But I realise that pain will never fully go away but instead "allow" myself to "wobble" occassionally and then get back into living in the present.

Your DS is so gorgeous, you are doing a wonderful job as him Mum- be proud of yourselves- but gentle on yourself too. Huge hugs xx

Madmouse 'bless you' you have been so strong for the last six months for ds and maybe it's just now you can let go a bit on the waiting for him to defy all his predicitons and actually come to terms with what happened iyswim.
Obviously it was a massive shock as it's not something you ever prepare yourself for.
Take some time and as others have said maybe some counselling or a debriefing of labour may help especially if you considering more dc's.
I also wonder if this is in some part linked to your colleagues recent news as any mum just hugs their lo a little tighter when they hear something like that never mind the circumstances that ds arrived in.

Sending lots of hugs to you madmouse. It's perfectly natural to feel loss in some way when you have been through what you have. My own ds was prem and low birthweight and was immediately taken to NICU where I didn't see him for 12 hours. I recently posted on another forum about how I felt a certain amount of loss and sadness that my preg didn't work out and all my expectations went out the window. Instead of coming home with him I had to travel to SCBU for four weeks to see him. Then there is the fear it will happen again in further pregs, which I have been warned it may.
Now the dust has settled, you have time to think back to the birth and are understandably grieving. My ds is 8 months and it's only now I'm thinking about it, esp after a friend had a healthy baby and I think 'why not me?' and felt very jealous and sad about how our experiences are different. In fact I spent most of yesterday in tears.
I'm trying to turn the negative experience into a positive one. I tried to think what it taught me and what I wanted to get out it and one of those things is that I really want to become a nurse as I had such a fantastic experience of them.
Please be easy on yourself. You are doing a great job and your ds sounds like a wee fighter. xx

IT makes complete sense...you have had a traumatic experience and you are allowed to grieve for what you have either lost or never had...I think it's a completely natural reaction.
I know how low I felt when things didn't go to plan wiht ds3 and I ended up with an Emergency C-section...and that was "just" about the traumatic Birth...!
Anyway, allow yourself to grieve and talk about it and maybe even seek some councelling...and most important be gentle with yourself!

Hi Madmouse,

I completely understand where you are coming from on this. My DD2 was in SCBU when born and very poorly for a long time, but we knew that she would be extremely ill at birth and were prepared for that. The mums whom I chatted to on the ward who were in the worst emotional state were those who had expected to be home within hours of giving birth and who had no time whatsoever to get their heads around their new reality.

I did realise later that I was suffering some problerms when I found it impossible to be in a room with a newborn baby. My DD2 was on a ventilator until two weeks old and couldn't cry and I found that very difficult. I guess my feelings were a form of jealousy. I had some counselling last year and was able to talk about those feelings and I am much better now with babies. Perhaps, as others have suggested, that's something you could explore?

Patsy

Like lots of others on here, I completely understand and feel very much the same. My ds was prem, had a lot of unexpected breathing difficulties and spent 7 weeks in SCBU. He is now a wonderful healthy toddler and you would never guess his start in life but it still makes me very sad. All my friends have started having their seconds and I can't bear to listen to their birth stories - I found seeing the newborn babies very hard.

I am hoping that a second baby might help, but like madmumnika I had pre-eclampsia, so no guarantees it won't happen again.

I don't have any advice or I would have used it on myself! Just wanted to offer some empathy. For me the feelings peaked around ds's first birthday (I was back at work and cried in the car every day for weeks) but I am starting to come to terms with it now and accept that this is part of me and ds and it's ok to feel sad about the start whilst feeling really happy about the present. You have been through a very traumatic experience and it sounds like both you and your ds have come through it brilliantly. He is still very young and it must be hard to have the doctors' pessimistic predictions hanging over you. Really hope you start to feel better soon.

Thank you all for your responses.

PatsyCline snap. My abiding memory is of ds in the incubator soundlessly crying while trying to pull out the tube in his throat. He was half a day old then and so strong. He then got so many drugs to stop the fit that he was asleep for the next week...

Dear Madmouse

Sorry - not posting on January thread ATM because I've no time to catch up but saw this and wanted to respond.

I haven't read the other posts, but it seems to me that you're completely bound to have aftershocks after such an experience.

I still feel shocked and upset after my delivery with Sabela. Most of the time it's fine, but sometimes it overwhelms me how close we came to a terrible thing. I know many people who had traumatic deliveries for whom it is the same. And I think the terrible news about your colleague was on e thing that was set to start off these feelings. When my best friend recently had a horrible birth experience it certainly brought it all back to me.

I too feel that before having the baby I had quite a positive attitude towards delivery, despite the pain and such. Now I feel scared about future births as like you I'd like have more.

One thing that did help a bit was talking to a gynaecologist up at the hosptial. When I left hospital I was so pleased and relieved that I hadn't asked any questions about what went wrong (or right perhaps). Getting some of these answered mad ethe whole process seem less risky.

There was something more I wanted to say but it slipped my mind. I'll post when I remember it.

I haven't much to say of reassurance except what you say makes sense to me and I think you are entirely rational for feeling liek this. Sending you lots of big hugs. You've done so well with your little man and he is beautiful.

The other thing I meant to say was, I understand your sense of grieving for the first few hours. I was fine when we came out of hospital and really enjoyed bieng with Sabela. It seemed so easy and wonderful. Then we had all those feeding problems and the horrible HV and I was so cross because she stole that sense of peace from me.

Hope you're feeling better today though. I knwo you are a redoubtable woman!

Hi Madmouse,

Ventilation is such an unnatural thing to see and to hear. It is a million miles away from the normal experience of having a newborn and it is very hard to endure.

Once your child is over the critical period you are somehow expected to just get over what has happened and, judging by the responses you have received here, that is something that many of us clearly find very hard to do. I hope that the fact that you are not alone in feeling this way helps you a little.

Patsy x

Madmouse, I was on the antenatal thread with you. My ds2 was born 7 weeks early though; grim experience - me in ICU and him in NICU. Ds1's birth was similar and dd's wasn't great either. I tube-fed them all.

I am so jealous still of women who get to cuddle their babies after the birth, and breastfeed them, and go home with them.

It's ok to grieve what you missed. People tell you to be grateful for your child and move on - that can be hard to do. It's good to let it out!

Hey Fruitful!!!!

I did get to cuddle and breastfeed Nathan for the first twelve hours. It was after that when it went haywire, so those hours are nearly forgotten.