“I
had a lot of hostility. I felt deprived of my baby and fatherhood. Looking at
other people who had what I didn’t have made me wonder, ‘Why can this idiot
have a family and children and I can’t?’ This was a question I asked myself a
lot.”
Ever feel like
this heartbroken father who lost his baby? If so, you’re experiencing the
natural reaction of anger. It's a way for us to attempt to justify or make sense
out of what we perceive to be a senseless tragedy. And your particular
situation may, like mine, fall into the “senseless” category, with my medical
group’s poor medical care and the misdiagnosis of my placenta previa condition. You might also want to blame somebody.
You’ll be
confronted with stories of neglected children, unfit parents, parents who seem
indifferent to their children (or even hostile to them) and oblivious to the
blessing and gift they’ve been given. After all, children are a heritage of the
LORD. Happy is the man who has filled his quiver with them. (Psalm 127) And you
deserve that, don’t you? A heritage and full quiver. It’s just
not “fair” is it?
Juxtaposed with
these thoughts of anger are likely to be thoughts of guilt: you worry that you
are in some way responsible for your baby’s death. Maybe you felt only
ambivalence instead of excitement and joy about your pregnancy diagnosis;
perhaps you didn’t feel it was “the right time” to have a baby or it was too
soon after the last birth, the pregnancy was “unplanned” or you didn’t know how
you’d care for another child financially or emotionally, or ____________ (you
fill in the blank). The nagging doubts, questions and self-chastisement can go
on endlessly. You can, and will, find (or possibly manufacture) any number of
faults to berate yourself for having during the pregnancy. If I had a dollar
for every “what if” I’ve let rattle through my brain the last twenty years I’d
be a wealthy woman. Not happier, just wealthy. The thoughts—if I entertained
them too much—sometimes made me sleepless, agitated. They left me exhausted and
depressed.
Or you may feel
so strongly about being at fault that you convince yourself you need to be
punished. Consider this couple’s story, shared by the father:
“The labor took a long time, even
with Pitocin, and Sally was in a lot of pain.
The doctor said, ‘Don’t be a hero,
take something for the pain,’ but she refused.
Later she told me she felt she had
to punish herself. If I had known that, I
would have demanded she take some
medication. It seemed so unfair for her
to be blaming herself for that.”
If you have
feelings of guilt, share them with others and certainly with your doctor. Having
your doctor clarify the medical facts—in a gentle, empathetic way—can help you
through this part of the grieving process. Just having a counselor or friend
listen to your concerns and fears goes a long way in releasing fear and guilt.
At least someone else is “sharing” your burden with you.
Sometimes you
may have a medical condition you didn’t know about so you and your doctor were
unable to prevent the loss by taking steps to prevent it. This was the case
with a personal friend who had three children in a row die in utero. Her doctor
was finally able to diagnosis the problem and treated her for it during the subsequent
pregnancy, which resulted in a full-term pregnancy and birth of her healthy
son.
This friend had
joyfully experienced three full-term pregnancies prior to her three losses, so
anticipating a problem hadn’t even been considered. My first son was born after
a relatively “easy” (aside from ghastly morning sickness and a third-term blood
pressure elevation) pregnancy, so no one was expecting the incompetent cervix I
presented both during Victoria’s and my last pregnancy. After Victoria, my
doctor was looking diligently for another placenta previa, but when that was
officially ruled out, he—and Chris and I—breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Our relief was short-lived, as you’ll read in the rest of my story. An
incompetent cervix and premature labor in the next pregnancy shocked and
demoralized all three of us.
And now the
difficult consideration: Certainly there are behaviors that may lead to the
death of a child in utero or premature delivery, and your feelings of guilt may
be justifiable. Your self-accusations may have some ring of truth to them. (As
in my case, one of my self-accusations was: Why didn’t I change doctors when I
had the chance?) In that case, do what you can to correct the situation in any
subsequent pregnancy and go through the process of seeking forgiveness from the
Lord and forgiving yourself. This is
really another topic all together, but let me say that sometimes we return to
the Lord over and over again to ask Him to forgive us for the same sin because
we haven’t really forgiven ourselves for it, or we’re still suffering the
ramifications of it, or because spiritual forces or other people repeatedly
beat us up over it. (I think I could have a blog dedicated solely to this issue
alone!) We let these situations rob us of our joy and our future! Don’t let
that happen. Seek the counsel of a wise
and godly friend; seek therapy from a
trusted biblical counselor or pastor. Confront the issue, repent, let it go and
move forward. (Did I say let it go? And don’t return to pick it up again!)
If someone else
has contributed to your loss then you will eventually need to forgive them so
you aren’t allowing theme to rob you of your joy and future!
The bottom line
is that you must fight against
letting your guilt paralyze you emotionally and block your grieving. (Yes, it
is a battle.)
Then there is
the searching
and yearning for your baby that is so common. Hilary had this to say
about her twins who died due to a premature delivery:
“For a long time I would fantasize
about the babies, putting them into
situations. I would go into a
grocery store and think, ‘I couldn’t fit a double
stroller in here.’ When driving I
could think the twins should be in the backseat.
“Once on a business trip I told a
fellow passenger I had twins. I’m really
embarrassed about this. I engaged in
this fantasy and pretended they had
lived. It was so nice. The man was
kind and I knew I would never see him
again.”
Sound familiar?
Honestly, I don’t know if these feelings ever truly disappear. I still walk by
the baby sections in department stores and wonder what Victoria might look like
dressed in the flouncy, girly dresses and hats; I sometimes allow myself to
“guess” what she’d look like or be doing at this stage of her life. What
boyfriends she’d be bringing home for her dad to assess, what she’d be pursuing
in college. How I would have raised her differently from my boys. How they
would have interacted with or protected her.
And yearning for
your baby can cause you to desperately crave becoming pregnant again, right away. This was Chris’s immediate reaction in the hospital, before he thought
about it and realized that wasn’t a good idea. He recognized that he really
just ached to replace Victoria. Yearning is a natural response to the void
you’re feeling, or the feeling of having failed and wanting to try again to
make it right the next time. To fix it. But doing so will severely hamper your
ability to grieve the baby you lost. As the authors of A Silent Sorrow state: “…mourning your loss and bonding with a new
pregnancy are demanding and opposite emotional tasks, difficult to do at the
same time.”
Giving yourself
time will help you understand that you'll never be able to replace
this special, unique baby you lost. Another baby will be just as unique and
new. (In my subsequent pregnancy and birth of my son, this was a tremendous
issue for both Chris and me, one we struggled with, and one I was
shocked to discover had not really resolved even after I spent a year grieving
Victoria’s death and seventh months struggling physically and emotionally
through another pregnancy.)
Finally, don’t
be surprised if you're assailed with jealousy, even if this feeling is
normally anathema to you and your personality. Following your loss, pregnant
women and new babies will appear to be everywhere. You’ll feel overwhelmed with
jealousy and hurt. It is a normal aspect of your loss and the grieving process.
Experts say it is temporary, but I’m not convinced of that. I’m ashamed to
admit that I’m still sometimes assailed with jealousy at the vision of a new,
pink baby girl. (Not a boy, just a girl.) But that could just be a vestige of
my competitive nature kicking in. Thankfully, these events are now rare, but they
do happen and render me internally embarrassed and disgusted at my abhorred character
weakness.
If it’s all too
much for you to process, don’t feel guilty about explaining to your friends and
relatives, who may be oozing a pregnant tummy or gushing over their new
arrivals, that you’re unable to see them or their new offspring at this time
because of your loss. If they are truly friends, they’ll deal well with it and
open their arms wide to socialize with you again, when you’re ready.
_________________________________________
NEXT WEEK: How Mothers Grieve the Loss of Their
Baby. I’ll also include a short discussion on the type of grief one might
experience when choosing to undergo an abortion following prenatal testing
revealing a congenital problem.
_________________________________________
Until next week.
Thanks for
joining me!
Blessings,
Andrea
(Reference: A Silent Sorrow: Pregnancy Loss by Kohn,
Moffitt and Wilkins, 1992.)
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