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I will say this about Michelle Duggar...
She's really held it together, though I think the next episode will be much harder to watch.
Is this wrong of me to say this??? I think that she has the saving grace of having so MANY full term healthy pregnancies that she will not experience the loss and the grief and the guilt that most of us have gone through / continuing to go through. But the fear and the panic and the anxiety, poor woman. Poor JimBob. And I feel awful for all the older kids who when they finally saw little Josie really understood once and for all what a scary situation it is for their family to be in.
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Re: I will say this about Michelle Duggar...
I think keeping it together is a coping mechanism. I'm like that- I could not lose it when Cooper was in the NICU. I had to keep it together, I'm not sure why, but I just couldn't let go.
Now, that I have my baby home and healthy, I cry all the time. EVERY SINGLE TIME someone tells me they prayed for my baby, I bawl.
I'm glad I already know that Josie has been there for 7 weeks and is doing alright- I think that made it easier to watch...
As a Christian, I can honestly see how she can keep it together. Not that I did, but I've seen men and women who are very mature in their faith that it is astounding at how "at peace" they can be about a crisis situation.?
I agree to an extent about the older kids being naive. I think anyone who hasn't experienced a 1 pound baby could have said the same thing. People would comment at how big Darby was when they heard she was 4.11, but totally changed their minds when they saw/see her.
I was bawling when all of the kids came into the room and it showed all of them crying. Oh. My. Goodness. DH was wondering what was wrong with me.?
A lot of people commented on me keeping it together when Robbie was in the NICU. TRUST ME, that was not the case. But I've always been one to put on a brave face in public.
Even in the NICU when something bad would happen, I might have a tear or two slip out, but for the most part, I was just stoic.
Then I'd go to a pumping room and lose my shiit.
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Most of the time I held my crap together as well. All of our family and the majority of our friends live out of state so needless to say I got a lot of phone calls. Since you can't have a phone on in the NICU, I got a lot of messages. I was then able to process the information, get my *** together, and call back. I had MANY comments about how much I had it together....to which I responded....."I'm not going to call in the middle of a breakdown!". It's just not my nature.
Of everyone I know, the only people who really "get it" are the ones who came and visited her in the NICU. It wasn't many, but they each have a very special place in my heart. Funny because they are also the ones who seem to really care about how much she's thriving now. They are the ones who say "Look at how BIG she is!" every time they see her even though she clocks in at the 20%. I know it's difficult to travel across state lines, but the ones who did just to meet my girl.....they are the people that matter to me the most.
OK....I got off topic.
Back to the Duggers.......the ending was hard and I'll or sure be watching this season. I thought at the very end where Michelle and Jim Bob were talking was the best part. One of them said something like.....We've never experienced anything like this with our other 18 children and we don't know how it's going to end. I thought that was good. Proves that you can have a dozen or so full term pregnancies and never understand how precious that experience really is/was.
I think this is why I was such a mess at the kickoff meeting. It really personalized it and hit home reminding me of how lucky we were
You are exactly right, you can never really understand what it is like until you are right there in the thick of it.
I didn't realize how traumatic my experience was for me until last night while watching this show. I had the same thing pre-e and delievered at 34 weeks and like it usually does it went very quickly. I was in the hospital for a month, but once things progressed they did at a rate that you didn't have time to let it sink in. Then 4lbs 4oz and the month in the NICU.
But when they started talking and showing her getting the u/s's and Jim Bob not handling it well, it was a flash back and I just sat there last night and sobbed.
I feel so bad for them, and hope little Josie is ok in the end.
I agree that Michelle is coping very well....but I think a lot of it is shock right now. Like Trish, I remember my friends and family commenting on how well I was holding it together. In the NICU we were all smiles, singing and cooing to Robinson because we felt that positivity was good for his health and well being- and his doctors and nurses always commented that the positive and happy energy were so good for him...
It was at night when I was alone trying to pump out the 1ml of bm that I was getting every 3 hours that I would really let me emotions flow. The tears flowed pretty heavily last night...so much so, that my husband threatened to turn the channel.
I even wrote a blog about my feelings about the show- and I never do that..I'm not very good at blogging. Suffice to say, the show really hit home and brought back so many emotions and fears that I thought were long gone.
I'm watch the show right now, from dvr, and I'm pretty tearyeyed. I think, looking back at the experience with Pre-E, when I first went to the hospital, I really didn't have any idea that he would be born. I really believed that the bedrest would get me to term, and we would get to go home with Jonathan. Little did we know that I would last for 4 days, and then the 5 tough weeks in the nicu would begin.
I think I was stoic at times, but everytime he would scream when they'd put his feeding tube back in, or would prick him to draw blood, I would just break down. Going home from the hospital and walking into his room, still makes me cry to think about. There wasn't too many people I would cry around, I think just my mom and dh.
Wow, this is much harder to watch, than I ever thought.
This. The only thing I was really emotional about was my milk supply and not being there with him 24/7 when DS was in the nicu. He was such a little fighter and we were taking each step as it came that I wasn't really sad about it. I just caught the tail end of the special last night and I lost it. Luke is 11 1/2 lbs now and just remembering how tiny he was - he was bigger than Josie - but just barely at 2 1/2 lbs. So tiny but so much fight in them... I tivo'd the special and will probably watch it tonight. I knew I would probably get teary watching it but I didn't expect that it would be such a strong reaction.