What range of emotions did you go through and did you feel cheated of a normal pregnancy?

[DontlookatmeImshy]

Ds2 was a 35 weeker so not particularly prem compared with most people here but i still have this wide range of emotions;

being happy and relieved that he is now home safely, feeling guilty that it may have been something i did/didn't do that made him arrive early, feeling bitter towards/jealous of other woman i see who are obviously about to pop a full term baby out, and still coming to terms with how fast it all happened - despite being in hospital anyway I didn't realise he was coming until i was 8cm dilated - I thought i was just constipated!!!, are just a few examples.

I assume most of these feeling are normal but wondered how other people felt after their premmie arrived.

I'm with you on the late abortions. My first daughter was born well within that time, it made me sick (really feel ill) that she fought so hard to live and yet could have been aborted. I imagine babies that age being aborted and fighting for life where ever they are discarded (actually I know that doesn't happen, there are nurses trained to deal with that). I don't agree with abortion, but it is personal, however I do feel late abortion is so very wrong.

"oo I bet you're glad he came early then".

Tell me about it! How insensitive can people get? That follows so many things like "you didn't get stretchmarks/ varicose veins/ huge" I would swap it all to have two healthy babies.

I think that there are seperate scales of special. Tink is so very special on her own scale and I'm sure my next one will be just as special, but on a totally different scale.

They do say that after you have had more than one premature baby, especially if there's miscarriages and/or you haven't had a term baby too, that you are unlikely to go to term. It partly depends on why it happened, but also if your second one was just labour then your body doesn't know what to do anymore. If you have had more than one premature baby and are considering getting pregnant I would speak with your consultant or GP if you don't have one and ask for a pre-pregnancy appointment where you can discuss your fears and make a plan of action for next time.

Butting in again sorry (can you tell I cannot sleep tonight)

Reading what so many of you have written esp TinkerbellesMum makes me want to cry, it is something I have heard and seen too many times when I worked on NICU. I was asked so many times why it happened and normally there was absolutely no reason even where there was so many Mums blamed themselves and it had nothing to do with things they had or had not done. It just was and that is the hardest thing to accept We all look for the cause. Like TinkerbellesMum I had a late miscarriage I think that is perhaps why I found it easier to put myself in the parents position. I blamed him (he was driving too fast) he blamed me (the train had been late he had to work) and it tore us apart physically and emotionally and has taken me 15 years to even start getting to a stage where I can live and talk about it.

What you are actually suffering from is a type of grief (even though your child is still alive) for what should have been, and your dreams and dreams are the hardest thing to accept are gone. Anger, sadness,.. and all the other things you describe are normal and only to be expected if hard for you or anyone else to accept because they expect you to be happy.

"Tink does her "Singing in the Rain" dance and I forget all about it"

Now is that not just the most fantastic picture It was hearing things like that, seeing confident parents and well (sometimes just wellish) babies go home, and then be brave enough to visit with this amazing bright bubbly thriving child that got me through and made my job so worth while.

violetskies - sorry if I implied that you loved your premmie more than a term baby it was not meant like that, it's just when you have a baby who has fought so hard to survive and has overcome so many hurdles it makes them seem so special, although I know that everyone that is here is really special and the ones that don't make it too.

I was a 34 weeker myself 30 odd years ago and not expected to survive but here I am.

I had two born prem, first at 34.5 weeks and the second at 32 weeks.

I went though a whole range of emotions like you all and felt very guilty especially since they never could put a cause to why they were both born early.

I went for a third and she was born slap bang on due dates and was even induced to get her moving! I was treated all along like she would be a 30 week prem baby and she wasn't but boy did it put miy life on hold for those 10 weeks.

All I wanted to add was hang on in there even after 2 prems a full term one is possible.

No regret at all re missing out on 'normal' stuff, but lots of guilt ...even tho i know its not my fault. DD aged 13 born at 30 week, ds aged 7, born at 27 weeks. (and there were the 3 I lost in between also)

I can't begin to understand how difficult it may be to have such an early baby, and I don't claim to have struggled in anything like the same way as you ladies. I know I am lucky in comparison. I technically didn't have a prem, but babycarrot was born earler than expected and her birth stirs up all sorts of mixed emotions in me.

At 36.5 weeks, a beloved relative died very suddenly, sending me into shock with grief. I stayed awake that night rocking and crying, feeling BHicks contractions. Spent the next day in stunned contemplation, and the following morning, bang on 37 weeks, my waters broke. I was then pressurised by various midwives to abandon my home birth, and I did eventually go into hospital. She was born 48 hours after my waters broke.

I wasn't ready, I expected to go overdue and thought I had weeks left, and my joy was mixed up with the grief. Very emotional time. I wonder if the shock actually caused me to go into labour. During my labour I had to fight quite hard to put the grief aside and not think about it.

If she had been born a few days earler, she'd have been offficially prem and her age would have been corrected by 3 weeks at examinations. As it stands, she's being measured quite harshly because she's so slow to grow, and the paediatrician isn't making any allowances for her being a tiny bit early.

But I'm lucky that I haven't had to suffer the loss of a baby. Tinksmum, my heart goes out to you. so sad.

I never understood that either if a baby is 36+6 it's a premmie and as you say age corrected, at 37 weeks it's term - strange but suppose they need a cut off somewhere.

it is odd to be so inflexible, especially when you think how impossible it is to be accurate about due dates anyway...

When the paed was telling me she had development delays, he refused to acknowledge 3 weeks would have made a difference, but if he had allowed for them it would have made quite a big difference to being considered 'normal'.

VLC, it doesn't matter what the paed thinks at the end of the day. Go home and think "I know she's fine" and let it all go in one ear and out the other. If you need to pay lip service there.

I had the opposite problem, Tink has kept up with her birth age and the Dr's were trying to adjust her age, I had to point out that if I look at her like that she is doing fantastically because she's doing well for her birth age.

I'm trying to remember what it says on the scan reports about how accurate they are, when you work it out it's not that accurate. I was having TV scans to rule out IC and they said one week I was 1cm dilated. When the Dr looked at it he went mad, he said that there was a huge difference between where they measured and where my cervix really was. I could have been taken into theatre on the basis of that and had a cerclage put in!

I went on a tour of the hospital I am booked into to have DC3 this week and they tried to show me the area where they looked after the premmies and I got about two steps in before I had to back out hurriedly. It bought back a flood of emotions I don't want to deal with.

They will allow me to give birth at that hospital from 32 weeks and the midwife tried to tell me that there are now good results for babies born from 24 weeks on (I am 27 at the mo). With DS1 my OB kept saying he would be happy if we made it to 34weeks. I think that they generally regard weeks 37+ as just being the time where the baby lies down some fat ...

My DH had been complaining about the amount of money I am spending on my Naturopath and all her supplements and herbs and stuff - the Midwife told me to tell him that it is a lot cheaper than keeping an unwell baby in hospital for 14 days at $1000 a day - he did respond that we would get some of that cost back from the health fund - which makes him sound like an A!&$hole which he usually is not, although empathy is not his storng suit.

AussieSim, I'm sure they've told you but at the stage you are at your LO would have a brilliant chance, every day is blessing now. (That's how I had to make myself see it when pregnant with Tink)

Your DH is probably feeling it too and not able to show or express it as well as you can, being the man. TD is a very sensitive man but has problems showing his emotions, he said he had to be strong for me when we lost Lily-Hope. I tried to tell him it's his time to need someone to be strong for him and that we were in it together. When Tink was born he was really strange about it, he kept himself busy and we didn't see much of him, he didn't take paternity leave so we would see him at night and every other Sunday (every other weekend he's in London with his sons and he goes out with his friends all Saturday). There were some babies whose dads were never there because they couldn't cope with it. I think sometimes we have to give men a little room cause they struggle and hurt too but they won't always show it.

DD was born at 32 weeks, after placental abruption.

Thing is I went into hospital and made a big song and dance of the pain I was in even though they had given me lots of drugs to stop the labour and the CX had stopped I still went on about it.

Because of this after a week of being in hospital I was taken down for exploratory operation on my ovaries and bowels incase of a cyst, at which time they discovered the abruption and did a CS under GA.

She was quite poorly, was sedated for a few weeks and on ventilators etc, she also had two pneumothoraxs and was bagged twice after she stopped breathing so it was bloody scary.
I sometimes feel guilty that I kicked up such a stink about the pain, because as far as they were concerned everything was ok so maybe if I'd coped with it better she would've got an extra few weeks inside me and been born fine.

Also because of everything that happened I tried expressing milk etc but was unable to, my milk dried up before she could suckle and now she has eczema, athma, hayfever etc DS has none of these and was breastfed, I sometimes wonder fi that's why he doesn't have them, because he had the immunity, and everytime I see her eczema flare up or her asthma make her find it hard to breath I wish I'd been quiet and kept her in me until she was able to suckle

My DD was born at 36 weeks on the dot. She was never treated as a prem.

Little did I know that her early arrival would make her extra vulnerable to getting sick and we ended up nearly losing her on her due date with Respiratory Infection .

I don't feel at all cheated by her birth, but her early months were horrendous - ICU/hospital, physio, chest and cardiac scans to determine the damage. I don't remember that time fondly - it was a nerve wracking horrible time. Even now - 10 months later, I still haven't recovered.

My next door neighbour had a little girl a month after DD was born - she was born at 23 weeks - weighing 1lb5. That poor woman went through hell - so I can totally sympathise with those of you have had a true prem

I had my DD 10 weeks ago at 30+6 weeks. I went through a horrendous rollercoaster of emotions that I don't think anyone can understand unless they have been through it. One nurse on NICU summed the experience up as something which you would not wish on your worst enemy - and I agree it is horrible.

Like Tink and others on here I felt as though I had missed out on loads and people just couldn't understand. i felt I'd missed out on loads of things;

1. Being heavily pregnant - and yes how annoying when people try to comfort you by saying how lucky you are to miss this bit out
2. Being pregnant at Christmas - when I mentioned this to the community midwife (and I was in tears about it!) she replied 'urrrgh think yourself lucky no one wants to be fat at Xmas' I didn't want to be fat i wanted to be bloody pregnant
3. Preparing myself and my home for my new arrival
4. Spending the last few weeks of our pregnancy excitedly awaiting DD's arrival
5. Feeling the big kicks and being able to tell if it was an arm or a foot etc
6. Starting my mat leave when I wanted to! and having a coupole of weeks to enjoy and relax
7. A leaving do at work!
8. Being there are the birth of my child (had an Emercengcy Secyion under GA)
9. My husband being there at the birth

10 Missing out on skin to skin in those first few hours after her birth 11. Not being able to see her for over 24hrs and then not being able to cuddle her for another 24hrs 12. Feeling as though I was a mummy - sooo difficult in those early days when you have to rely so much on the nurses 13. Missing out on my first Christmas with my new husband - bearing in mind I waited almost 13yrs to get married!! 14. Felling as tho I was 'weasting' my mat leave by being in hospital 15. not being able to enjoy my baby

I also hated getting cards and pressies as I didn't want to have my baby so soon and wanted everyone to wait til she was home. Congratiulations didn't seem right. But I think had no one bothered I'd have been just as upset

Also cos she was born on 15th Dec all people kept saying was what a lovely Xmas present and kept sending Baby's first Xmas cards. It wasn't the best present ever it was the worst - and I feel sooo bad for saying that - but it was like having the best present ever but then being told you can't play with it tho! the cards made me feel sad but I felt that I had to be gracious and say thank you to people when really I wanted to rip them up and burn them Also I don't count last Xmas as her first 2008 will be her first.

Sorry for all that - not realised quite how much I felt I'd missed out on.

Now baby is home I feel 100000000% better and love being a mum. However I'm very aprehensive about getting pregnant again

I remember thinking that people shouldn't send cards to say congratulations when I wanted sympathy, help and commiseration! Not because I didn't think she would be okay in the end (she was 33 weeks), but because I felt that I had failed for not holding her in for long enough.

DD2 on the other hand was a strapping 38-weeker and the whole experience was so different that it made me really realised what we'd missed out on first time round - that giving birth is an achievement, not a failure, and that it can be so happy, and stress-free, and normal!

That said, DD1 will always be my special girl, and those weeks in special care are part of what made her that. I try not to lose sight of that fact that if she'd been born in any country, or another period in history, she wouldn't be here.

Sorry, in another country, not any country!

I'm crying now reading Rascals post, you said things I forgot about. I could have written your post.

With ds1 I felt cheated of the last weeks of pregnancy, particularly since I thought he was my last and I wouldn't ever feel a baby kicking inside me again.

With ds2 I knew he was coming early and was thoroughly glad when he arrived (I was on the antenatal ward for 2.5 months). But my friend had her baby a few days later. Hers was 2 weeks late (mine was 7 weeks early). So it is hard not to compare. I still have a newborn who feeds all the time, doesn't smile, can't hold his head up, and she has a little person who sleeps through the night and plays on his babygym. They are both 11 weeks.

But yes, I see green whenever I meet a woman at the end of pg, talking about having her baby and coming home the next day. And women who get to bf their newborns rather than tubefeed them. I so wanted a normal pg and a 'normal' newborn this time. I didn't see ds2 for 48 hours after he was born and couldn't hold him then.

But ds2 is alive and so am I. I'm clinging on to that but I'm sitting here in tears. I'm so busy looking after 3 kids and still recovering from the surgery that I've not had time to think through all this. I think the floodgates might be going to burst soon

Tink sorry to have made you cry - you are one of the people that has made me feel better about being a mummy and helped so much with your support with my breastfeeding etc so if nothing else your experience however heartbreaking has helped me and most probably others by making you able to empathise and support others x

rascal, I was in your shoes 3 years ago and had ds3 2 days after Christmas. Like you I had ds3 under GA and was very disorientated for a couple of days. I remember getting out of bed for the first time, eerily I was on a 20 bed ward all on my own and being totally mesmerised to see a Christmas tree at the end of the ward. I had completely forgotten that it was Christmas
Just to let you know, I am now pregnant again and this pregnancy has been so much better from the start, no complications whatsoever. Just because one pregnancy doesn't go as planned, doesn't mean that none of them will.

It's ok Rascal, it wasn't you that made me cry as such, just reading what you wrote I thought "I could have wrote that!" It reminded me of things I'd forgotten and I was having an emotional day (it seems I'm not bf enough anymore to keep my body from going back to it's normal hormonal state! Oh well, it's been 3 years since I had a normal cycle.)

I'm glad I've helped you, it's the one reason I post so much about my experiences, not to keep going back there which is really hard, but in hope of helping someone else.

It's sort of nice hearing others GA experiences, most people tell me I'm mad when I tell them how it made me feel and still does. But how can anyone who watched and participated in their baby being born understand what it's like to not be there? They say "of course you were there" but they don't understand what it's like to go to sleep with them trying to stop your labour and wake up 45 mins later with contractions stopped and not remember anything. Or to be told you have to wait until you can wake up and have a wash to see your baby when your eyes refuse to respond and then to be told you need to wait till she's had an x-ray all the time people are coming and going telling you she's beautiful and has long blonde hair...

Maybe we should start a GA survivors thread.

OK, I got to go to my course and I'm making myself cry again!

PS, I wanted to add one in to "but you've got..." when I talk about missing Lily-Hope people say "but look at the beautiful little girl you've got". As much as I love Tink I would like to hear any parent say to me "my kids are interchangable"!

Another GA survivor here. I was under for 12 hours and woke up in intensive care. It was very very disorientating, not at all like having been asleep for 12 hours.

All our family and friends knew about ds2's birth before I did!

And the medical staff were so concerned about my survival that the baby seemed incidental.

And all those people who tell me that we're both alive and well (ish) and therefore none of what we have been through matters! I know they don't understand, I know they mean well. BUT.

On BBC3 tonight, that journalist Gail Somebody was attending a birth at a birthing centre with birthing pools and all that natural stuff. I was sitting on the sofa with ds3 and I got all teary at what I've missed out on, not just with ds3 but with ds1 and ds2 as well as all were C sections and I am by nature someone who likes things to be green and natural. Then ds3 said "Don't cwy, Mammy!" and I just looked at his gorgeous little face and really, I had to scold myself for caring how he got here, he is so delightful! And my SIL thinks I am mad, she had 2 very difficult natural births and had a lot of intervention with her dd so it wasn't perfect either but people don't understand that the whole experience does lose some of it's meaning when things don't go as planned.

Vicoriansqualor - do not say you moaned about the pain of an abruption unnecessarily. I totally know how agonising it is, happened to me 3 times...twice i ended up with babies - one at 30wks, one at 27, the other sadly was too early. there were 2 more late miscarriages also.

Hi again, sorry been away with chicken pox!
Reading these posts makes me very emotional and brings lots of memories flooding back both good and bad. My DD was born about 30 miles from where we live and I had also never visited the unit or had any idea what it would look like. This was made even worse when after 5 days I was kicked out even with a c-section and sent home while my baby remained in NICU. I remember screaming and begging them to let me stay but they couldn't. I ended up sitting on the tube with my husband sobbing while bemused commuters could only look on. I phoned the hospital constantly to check on her which must have driven them crazy. I was back the next morning by 6am. I kept doing this for 9 long weeks. I also remember I never asked many questions about her medication or what they were doing. Maybe I didn't really want to know or just didn't realise I could but when I speak to others they seem to know every drug their child had. My husband feels he missed out as well as he was not allowed near me during the op and had to stand behind my head, unable to even hold my hand. He was asked if he wanted to go with our DD or stay with me and I remember screaming at him to go with her as she needed one of us to be with her. Certainly there was no wetting the babies head for him. When we came home due to problems with her immune system and her heart we were not allowed out in public for nearly 3 months. This meant I never joined any Mums groups or met any new Mums. Very isolating. Even health visitor had to come to me each week although fat lot of use she was. I also know about the stupid and insensitive comments others can make and how upsetting they are. I know people were constantly saying to me look at the prem baby and it used to drive me crazy I couldn't understand how they knew. Now looking at the pictures it is obvious. One day a heavily pregnant woman told me I was "lucky" to have had her early and I went into mad Mummy mode and screamed at her all that my DD had been through the pain the procedures and the times she died and then came back, the bleeds on the brain, the life she now faces and said she should think again about what she said when in two weeks she was holding a healthy baby. Sorry to say reduced her and me to tears but made her realise how trite her comment was. Even now at nearly 4 she is still slightly developmently delayed and has a very short attention span as well as her heart and breathing problems but she is my little miracle and now I love telling people her story to make them see how far she has come. There wil be no more children for us to due to my problem which makes her even more precious but does mean I do feel the loss of a "normal" pregnancy and birth even more. Reading these posts does make me feel I am not alone which is a great help