But isn't my baby a baby too?

Roxycc55 · July 2012

This is on my mind from the stuff everyone has been posting about the Lily Allen articles stating she's having her second child, (which is so ridiculous to be said). Anyway, I have to warn that I am in a terrible mood from everything else in the world right now, so this is going to be venty and I don't want anyone to get in anyway offended, especially on a board like this where the way things are said need to be carefully considered (by me). So, just warning, I don't mean to come across that way.

I also want to say this first, I know one hundred percent that a stillbirth, or infant loss, are both not the same as what I went through, which relates to my first post here about how I just feel like I don't fit in any area, because my loss was not the same as a first tri miscarriage either. I just want everyone to know first that I respect the differences in our losses, and that I can only imagine how much harder yours probably are to endure, so I am not trying to compare.

That being said, I just need to vent my feelings. This is the one place I can come to for comfort and support, and to not feel bad about everything in the world, so I just need to clear up because I was frustrated from an earlier post, and decided to just get my frustration out instead of not using this board for support, because of how helpful it has (and everyone on it) has been. Basically, I just started reading responses to how rude it was for Lily Allen's first two pregnancies (who are also her babies) to not be recognized in articles. This is my own sensitivity, so please don't take this as me calling anyone out, at all. Because of how I feel stuck in the middle of loss situations, I'm particularly sensitive to people's reactions on this. I just got sad last night when reading responses, because I felt like some people were basically saying "yeah it's rude that they didn't recognize her stillborn child." Which it is. But that her miscarriage wasn't as important to be recognized, which was a later miscarriage, almost exact timing as mine in fact. So I just got my feelings hurt. Because I felt like I was unvalidated almost in feeling like my baby was my first baby too. Timing wise I feel right on the line. I almost delivered my baby, but by the time I was having contractions five minutes apart (which they didn't expect to happen so initially scheduled a D&C for), I was only a couple of hours away from the D&C, so I went with it. I wasn't strong enough mentally to handle delivering my baby, which I feel terrible about all of the time. Ugh, this post is so not meant to complain about the fact that my loss was easier than most of yours. If it sounds that way, I'm so sorry. I just needed to get my feelings out on here, because like I said if I felt resentful I wouldn't have a place to go to for support anymore. And this board has been so helpful. I hope I didn't offend anyone with this, truly. I am so sorry for all of your losses.

Heatherhah · July 2012

I understand what you are saying, I don't personally take offense at all. People just random people ask me how many kids I have or they ask me what pregnancy this is for me and I tell them I have been pregnant 6 times and have 2 living children and one with wings the others were early losses and I have no idea what the sex was but they count too. A loss is a loss either way. It is tough for late loss moms and early loss moms because those babies are easily forgotten all the time by others. These babies aren't here to show people plus infant and stillbirth is really taboo still. It isn't something you hear about unless you know someone or it happens to you.

I agree with you I read she was pregnant with her second baby and I was mad too. She had a second tri loss and they didnt mention it at all. That is sad that baby counted too. I am sure she will never forget that baby she lost. Plus her early miscarriage. They all count. The media is crazy for sure.

I am sorry for your loss and your baby did count for sure and you should be here. Our losses may be different but at the end of the day we have all lost our sweet babies and the dream of their lives being here with us. HUGS!!

Heather

pottermommy · July 2012

I call my two miscarriages my babies and they were very early losses. Like before 7 weeks early.

I only have one in my ticker b/c th eother just happened and I can face looking at a third memorial ticker on my siggy.....

Your baby counts, it 100% is a baby. Big Hugs.

audiecooper · July 2012

I think I understand what you are saying. I just happened to come on this board just to read, but I felt like I needed to comment. I have not personally lost a baby, and I'm pregnant with my first. My mom had 3 miscarriages and one still birth. She and my dad named all of the babies. Of course, the still birth was the hardest for all of us and it happened just last year. We still cry about it. We miss those other sweet babies, though, too. They were all a part of our family.

themarquis0 · July 2012

I don't really know anything about (or have much to say about) the Lily Allen thing. But in regards to the question you're raising -- basically, 'what counts' as a baby that 'matters', of course all losses count as our babies (assuming we choose to think of them as our babies -- some folks don't with early losses and that's okay too).

When we lost Alice (18.5 weeks), we went through some of those same questions -- was she our baby or 'just' a 'miscarriage'? Would other people understand or value that she was our baby? Should we say when we talk about it to others that we had a 'loss' -- or should we say that our baby died because she was too premature to survive?

In the end, we knew she is our baby and that is that -- other people can think whatever the heck they want and if they think she is 'just a miscarriage' then they are wrong. That is all there is to it. And yeah, there are people out there that think we're crazy people and I really don't care.

There is something else to be said, though, which is that even if they are all our babies, some kinds of losses might be different than others. Honestly, I sometimes think about the women on this board who have had full-term/near-term/infant losses and feel so, so thankful that we didn't lose Alice then. Their losses were different than ours. It would be different to take a baby to term and bond with them for 40 weeks (twice the amount of time we bonded with Alice) and prepare a nursery and fill the house with baby things and have family surrounding you in the hospital and go through full-term labor and come home with empty arms -- different than what we experienced. It would be really different to hold a live baby and love them every second and change their diapers and feed them and watch them grow and thrive and become part of your lives then have them taken from you. At the same time, when I see people with really early losses who bonded with a baby *for a week* and got really excited about the whole thing *for a week* and then had what seemed like a really heavy period ... well, I think what they went through was really really different than what we went through. They didn't labor and deliver a baby, they didn't hold him/her in their arms, their milk didn't come in, they didn't spend months thinking and dreaming about this little person-to-be ... do you see what I'm trying to say?

There are different kinds of losses. And while I wouldn't say some kinds are better or worse, I will say that some are more life altering than others. In the loss group my partner and I go to, there are lots of folks with early losses -- they pop in for a session or two and then tend to get back on that horse and start trying again and sort of moving on with things. The pain of the loss doesn't go away but they manage to continue their lives without a lot of need for support. The folks who lose babies later basically never leave the group. They eventually feel a bit better and often have a rainbow baby, but while pregnant, and later while parenting, they return again and again and again. We have people who are now group leaders who lost babies twenty or more years ago and who cry every single time they tell the story of their loss ... twenty years. These late losses are life-altering, ripping apart the fabric of life in a way that is permanent. The early losses ... I'm not sure that they usually do alter lives in the same way. Which is not to say that they aren't also losing 'real' babies or that these losses aren't terrible ... they are just different.

Because there are different kinds of losses, there are different boards. We can't have an infinite number of different boards -- here, there are two. There has to be a division between 'early' and 'late' somewhere -- it's completely arbitrary. The trimesters make a good division point because once you get into the second trimester, most people labor and deliver, which changes the experience.

I don't know if you 'count' as 'early' or 'late'. Frankly, I figure you belong wherever you feel most comfortable, and I'm happy to have you here.

themarquis0 · July 2012

Sorry for the repost.

nuttycoconut · July 2012

Yes, absolutely. ((hugs))

pottermommy · July 2012

themarquis0:
.

Your answer was amazingly worded and made me cry....That is all.

LuckEinLuv · July 2012

I don't think anyone was saying that her (lily allen) or your early loss was not a baby. Unfortunately, I think not a lot of people remember her early loss. If you feel comfortable on this board, you are right where you belong.

MeggM1 · July 2012

themarquis0:

I don't really know anything about (or have much to say about) the Lily Allen thing. But in regards to the question you're raising -- basically, 'what counts' as a baby that 'matters', of course all losses count as our babies (assuming we choose to think of them as our babies -- some folks don't with early losses and that's okay too).

When we lost Alice (18.5 weeks), we went through some of those same questions -- was she our baby or 'just' a 'miscarriage'? Would other people understand or value that she was our baby? Should we say when we talk about it to others that we had a 'loss' -- or should we say that our baby died because she was too premature to survive?

In the end, we knew she is our baby and that is that -- other people can think whatever the heck they want and if they think she is 'just a miscarriage' then they are wrong. That is all there is to it. And yeah, there are people out there that think we're crazy people and I really don't care.

There is something else to be said, though, which is that even if they are all our babies, some kinds of losses might be different than others. Honestly, I sometimes think about the women on this board who have had full-term/near-term/infant losses and feel so, so thankful that we didn't lose Alice then. Their losses were different than ours. It would be different to take a baby to term and bond with them for 40 weeks (twice the amount of time we bonded with Alice) and prepare a nursery and fill the house with baby things and have family surrounding you in the hospital and go through full-term labor and come home with empty arms -- different than what we experienced. It would be really different to hold a live baby and love them every second and change their diapers and feed them and watch them grow and thrive and become part of your lives then have them taken from you. At the same time, when I see people with really early losses who bonded with a baby *for a week* and got really excited about the whole thing *for a week* and then had what seemed like a really heavy period ... well, I think what they went through was really really different than what we went through. They didn't labor and deliver a baby, they didn't hold him/her in their arms, their milk didn't come in, they didn't spend months thinking and dreaming about this little person-to-be ... do you see what I'm trying to say?

There are different kinds of losses. And while I wouldn't say some kinds are better or worse, I will say that some are more life altering than others. In the loss group my partner and I go to, there are lots of folks with early losses -- they pop in for a session or two and then tend to get back on that horse and start trying again and sort of moving on with things. The pain of the loss doesn't go away but they manage to continue their lives without a lot of need for support. The folks who lose babies later basically never leave the group. They eventually feel a bit better and often have a rainbow baby, but while pregnant, and later while parenting, they return again and again and again. We have people who are now group leaders who lost babies twenty or more years ago and who cry every single time they tell the story of their loss ... twenty years. These late losses are life-altering, ripping apart the fabric of life in a way that is permanent. The early losses ... I'm not sure that they usually do alter lives in the same way. Which is not to say that they aren't also losing 'real' babies or that these losses aren't terrible ... they are just different.

Because there are different kinds of losses, there are different boards. We can't have an infinite number of different boards -- here, there are two. There has to be a division between 'early' and 'late' somewhere -- it's completely arbitrary. The trimesters make a good division point because once you get into the second trimester, most people labor and deliver, which changes the experience.

I don't know if you 'count' as 'early' or 'late'. Frankly, I figure you belong wherever you feel most comfortable, and I'm happy to have you here.

I really love this. I don't know why, but I read it like, three times. I've never been able to articulate my perspective about my neonatal loss, which wasn't necessarily a pregnancy loss and isn't an infant loss. They are all just so different and every situation is unique. What brings us together is that we all lost a baby or babies, who were a part of our lives for however long. And I agree with the above poster, OP, you belong wherever you feel most comfortable.

One way in which we were fortunate is our daughter has a birth certificate, which I'm so grateful for because there are stillborn babies who don't get such niceties, and my daughter even has a social security number, which although will never really mean anything administratively it is something I cherish. Our families gathered around our daughter every day for four days and held her hand and talked to her. Even with all that, there are still some family members - even ones that were able to visit with my daughter and be at her bedside - who have pretty much refused to awknowledge my daughter existed her death. When I confronted my MIL about it once, she told me it was "awkward" to think or talk about my daughter. And then there are the people who never even got to see her, and so to them she seems even less "real." I didn't want tell my husband's side of the family about this rainbow pregnancy, even though my friends and family have known for weeks, because I was convinced that if we had an early loss there was no point in telling them because if they can't acknowledge a baby that was physically in their lives, then they would have even less to say about a baby they never saw.

All this to say to the OP - my loss was after 32 weeks and preterm labor, and I still look at people and think "You know I have a daughter, right? And that my son has a twin sister and my rainbow pregnancy isn't my second baby, it's my third?" We absolutely have that in common, so even though you feel in limbo, I'm sure there are lots of aspects about our losses that we can find a common ground about.

Roxycc55 · July 2012

themarquis0:

There is something else to be said, though, which is that even if they are all our babies, some kinds of losses might be different than others. Honestly, I sometimes think about the women on this board who have had full-term/near-term/infant losses and feel so, so thankful that we didn't lose Alice then. Their losses were different than ours. It would be different to take a baby to term and bond with them for 40 weeks (twice the amount of time we bonded with Alice) and prepare a nursery and fill the house with baby things and have family surrounding you in the hospital and go through full-term labor and come home with empty arms -- different than what we experienced. It would be really different to hold a live baby and love them every second and change their diapers and feed them and watch them grow and thrive and become part of your lives then have them taken from you. At the same time, when I see people with really early losses who bonded with a baby *for a week* and got really excited about the whole thing *for a week* and then had what seemed like a really heavy period ... well, I think what they went through was really really different than what we went through. They didn't labor and deliver a baby, they didn't hold him/her in their arms, their milk didn't come in, they didn't spend months thinking and dreaming about this little person-to-be ... do you see what I'm trying to say?

There are different kinds of losses. And while I wouldn't say some kinds are better or worse, I will say that some are more life altering than others. In the loss group my partner and I go to, there are lots of folks with early losses -- they pop in for a session or two and then tend to get back on that horse and start trying again and sort of moving on with things. The pain of the loss doesn't go away but they manage to continue their lives without a lot of need for support. The folks who lose babies later basically never leave the group. They eventually feel a bit better and often have a rainbow baby, but while pregnant, and later while parenting, they return again and again and again. We have people who are now group leaders who lost babies twenty or more years ago and who cry every single time they tell the story of their loss ... twenty years. These late losses are life-altering, ripping apart the fabric of life in a way that is permanent. The early losses ... I'm not sure that they usually do alter lives in the same way. Which is not to say that they aren't also losing 'real' babies or that these losses aren't terrible ... they are just different.

I completely agree.

Roxycc55 · July 2012

pottermommy:

I only have one in my ticker b/c th eother just happened and I can face looking at a third memorial ticker on my siggy.....

I am sorry you are currently facing another recent loss.

Roxycc55 · July 2012

Thank you all for your responses. I still feel in limbo as the PP put it (very accurate terming I think), as far as where I belong. Some statements have still made me feel that way. I think the biggest thing is that it is called an "early loss" here, and a "later loss" over on the other board, so it's like either way I don't really fit in. The reason Lily Allen hit a nerve with me is because her first one is being termed "early" like mine, and they were both 4 months, into the second tri.

I agree with OP about the differences in all the experiences. I did not bond as long as most of you with my baby, nor have to experience certain other aspects such as delivery or seeing the baby (partially because I couldn't handle it). Similarly, unlike the other women on the other board who bonded for a week or two with theirs, I bonded with my baby for months, so it feels different than both. I agree that there just has to be a cut off point somewhere, and I still don't really know where I belong. I don't want to feel like mine is different because it's too early or different because it's too late. I'm just one of those weird timings that fits right in that crack of who knows. I appreciate everyone saying if I am comfortable here, that I am welcome to. Thank you. I just don't know where I'm comfortable, or not making other people uncomfortable. If that makes sense.

jbranden12 · July 2012

I missed responding to this the other day, but I wanted to add that right after my loss, I found myself constantly looking at tickers to find people who I thought could understand EXACTLY what I was feeling. If someone lost a baby earlier, I thought I had it worse. If someone lost a baby later, I wasn't sure if I could relate.

Now that I'm a little further along, I don't feel the need to compare like that. Yes, experiences are definitely different in that I went through l&d, but I also didn't have to experience some of the terrifying things I read over on the M/PL board. We have all lost our children. I say go wherever you feel comfortable, comment wherever you feel comfortable. There is a lot of crossover in this type of grief.

Roxycc55 · July 2012

jbranden12:

I missed responding to this the other day, but I wanted to add that right after my loss, I found myself constantly looking at tickers to find people who I thought could understand EXACTLY what I was feeling. If someone lost a baby earlier, I thought I had it worse. If someone lost a baby later, I wasn't sure if I could relate.

This is pretty much my exact feelings right now, haha. I appreciate what you are saying. And I see how you mean, a loss is a loss honestly. And there are some things that we can relate on, while there are other things we can't, and that is fine. But I appreciate your sentiments on this.

pottermommy · July 2012

I am going to base these ?s on my Kam, who was 2 when she died....

Do you miss your baby?

Do seem empty and alone?

Do you feel like he walls of the world have fallen in around you?

Is it impossible not to think about?

Do you imagine what she would have been like?

Do your arms ache b/c she isn't in them?

My answers are going to be different than yours b/c our losses in this instance are opposite ends of the specrum, possibly the most different on the page.

But no matter how much explanation....One answer will be the same...Yes. Yes to every single one of those.

You carried that baby with it you. When you lost your baby you lost hopes and dreams and an entire life you had planned around that baby. IT isn't about a loss, it is about a BABY loss, and your LO was certainly in your eyes and your heart, in our eyes and in our sorrow for you, a baby. You lost the most precious things there is to lose and so did all of us. That makes you a part of us, no matter the weeks no matter the months, you are here, and unfortunately once your in this group, you are in.

Though I personally feel we have the best members ever even if I would rather not know any of you for this reason, I am glad since we have this in common, we are together.

Roxycc55 · July 2012

Thank you for saying these things. I am so sorry that you have to be here too. But you have been very very helpful to me, and I really appreciate it. Everything that you said is so true. And you are right, we are the two most different on the page, but our answers are both still yes, even if in different perspectives. The fact that you, of all the members on here, are so welcoming to me, makes me feel that I can truly belong here. Thank you so much for that. The support here is amazing.

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