Hi X,
Not sure if you've been on FB - XXXXX XXXXXX was born last Sunday. It was quite a long and drawn out ordeal getting him out and ended up having an emergency C-section after days of contractions and then forceps but I still couldn't push him out.
Still recovering this end but was all worth it though as he's adorable. Apart from my dark hair hard to tell who he looks like yet as he's changing by the day.
How are you? Has DH gone back to work yet? What are your plans?
No I haven't been on Facebook to see your happy photos of your new, live family. I avoid the dratted thing like the plague. If it's not baby photos ,it's sodding scan pictures.
I think this email clearly highlights how unbelievably unappreciated the impact of having a dead baby is. If my husband had died, do you think this friend, or anyone else for that matter, would be sending me pictures going, 'here's my husband!', 'he took his time proposing, but I got a wedding in the end!' No, of course you wouldn't, because it would be crassly insensitive.
But with babies, especially those who die before term, the same rules evidently do not apply. I don't think it could have occured to this friend for a minute that I'd be upset to receive news or a photo of her baby. To be honest, when I got that (somehow I knew she would email me and it was an email I was dreading receiving) it would have been quicker and less painful if she'd simply come round and stabbed me in the heart.
Despite giving birth to one dead baby, let alone your second, it still feels like you are meant to be delighted at everyone else's baby; the concept of grief for your own is just plain bizarre.
This person has NO CLUE about how painful her message is! What is wrong with people?!! I don't understand why people would not understand that losing a baby would be DEVASTATING and not something that you just forget about. "What are your plans?"--- Really! How out of touch. I am furious on your behalf that you had to receive this insensitive message. And the fact that the baby was due at around the same time as yours is just further salt in the wound. And I don't believe that she knows what a "long and drawn out ordeal" is, compared to what you have been through! Ugh!! So sorry you have to put up with this thoughtlessness! And how crappy that it's everywhere, it's a part of our culture that does not want to acknowledge baby loss or the grief associated with it as a "valid" grief.
ReplyDeleteI recently had a similar experience when a friend was "catching up" and mentioned that he and his wife were fine and his children are just growing older, and what was new with me. Instead of saying I was fine, I went ahead and wrote that I had not had a very good year since we had lost two babies, one was an early loss and the other at 13 weeks, 5 days. He just said, well you know it took me and my wife 2 years to have our first one, but it was really worth the wait. I thought, this is not about just trying, to ME it was a loss and there was a whole lot of GRIEF involved. My baby had a little beating heart and was kicking its tiny arms and legs. And also I had already been trying for SEVEN years before these losses. People don't understand the grief of losing a baby, it is just ridiculous. And they say "just have another"... not so simple for many of us! (sorry this has turned into a real vent)
Anyway, I really relate to your post, and I'm so sorry that this person was not sensitive at all. I hope one day she will realize it.
Amazing. These people simply have no clue as to how lucky they are to be SO clueless! Thanks for 'it's worth the wait'! What if you never managed to have children, what then?! I have to hang on to the fact that if they knew for even 30 seconds what it was like if their child was dead, then they wouldn't be so foot-in-mouth. No guys, I haven't had a heavy period, a new human being has died!!
ReplyDeleteI am in shock your "friend" sent you that :-( How can they not see how insensitive and down right rude that are being?!
ReplyDeleteI am so sorry your friend sent you that, and that you MIL is so clueless. My heart hurts for you. I don't think your selfish at all for feeling the way you do. I wish you good luck with your IVF and ha happy, healthy baby at the end of it.
ReplyDeleteLizzy