Sunday, 18 August 2013

Looking back

I don't go on Face.Book very much these days.  Today, I had to go into my messages to contact a family friend.  And this was the last of our message history. 



  • February 24, 2012
  • 8:28am
     
     

    • Veronica
     

    Hi L,
    I'm doing ok - not great - but hanging in there I guess. My spirits have changed a bit since you last saw me... I'm feeling kinda discouraged by this whole "over due" status I'm in.


  • Due date based on my last period put me due at Feb 21. Due date from my first trimester ultrasound (which they say is a little more accurate) put me due for Feb 18. Both days have come and gone... and I'm still reporting news to everyone.... no baby yet.

  • On Tuesday (Feb 21) I had an ultrasound at North York General to check baby's status as I was closing on 40 weeks pregnant - and everything was good. The score they gave baby and womb were all perfect... they just said baby looks very comfortable and was in no rush to come out. I felt good about the news, but when I had another weekly check with my Doc on Wednesday and she told me my cervix is still 2cm dilated (so very little change in a week) and the head hasn't dropped at all. I got pretty down. She'll be leaving for her vaca today, and I'm going in this morning to see her one last time, and she's going to stretch my cervix to see if we can kick start labour for the weekend. I have another ultrasound at NYGH on Monday considering I dont deliver, and then an appointment with the doctor who is covering my doc later in the day to discuss inducing me before next weekend.
    I've been in a funk the past few days with a constant feeling of "whats the hold up???" and I cant help but start to feel like something's wrong with me. I have a lot of anxiety as I'm kind of lingering in "unsafe" territory with baby inside and approaching 41 weeks pregnant. Something just feels very strange as my reality is very different now from what I had perceived the end of Feb to look like.

  • No matter the outcome, I will promise to keep in touch. N called the other night asking about baby news.. and it's getting tough to keep reporting the same news. Nope, no baby. Kinda makes me sad.
  •  
    N had plans to come to Toronto for the end of FEB to stay with me as a house guest for a few weeks.. but these plans were kind of based on baby already being here and settled in with me and Daniel. N is still planning on beginning her stay sometime next week... but I dont think she'll be at my place until after baby arrives and Daniel and I have had some time to adjust.

  • Depending on how things unfold with me over the next week - I would love to have a lunch or dinner (or just some couch time!) with you and N in the near future.

  • Thanks L for simply being here if I need anything
  • Lots of love and hugs,
  • Veronica
     

    •  

    I've reread that message probably 100 times.  But it's been a while now since Theodore's been here.  It still makes my heart ache.  It still has me trying to grasp at what went wrong... still has be doubled over inside trying to fix the past, trying to go back and make it right before it went wrong.  I remember sitting in my dining room writing that message.  It was morning, and I had a bit of a breakdown in the car on the way to that doctors appointment.  The appointment where she told me everything was fine.  Where she told me I'd have the baby before the weekend was over.  Where she told me things were perfect as she listened in on his heart with the Doppler for all of 5 seconds.  Where I walked away feeling like I should feel okay before that's what I was being told to do.

    I read that message and I feel like I knew.  I knew then that things weren't OK, but I let it go because I didn't know any better. 

    I still cant believe I had him alive, and I had him well... and I didn't get to have him that way forever.
      Posted by at

      8 comments:

      1. Molly18 August 2013 at 16:14

        Oh that turns my stomach. I know how awful it must make you feel. So sorry. Also, I am going to email you back... This is Hayes' anniversary week, so it's been crazy but will email u very soon. Sending lots of love

        ReplyDelete
      2. Mama Bear18 August 2013 at 16:30

        I also feel like I knew that things weren't okay. And yet...
        Sending love

        ReplyDelete
      3. Tash19 August 2013 at 07:29

        I knew things weren't OK too, but we decided to sleep on it and see how I felt in the morning. And then it was rushing to the wrong hospital and staying there much too long but I didn't know any better either.

        I am struggling with a lot of guilt too. Some days it hides and other days it gnaws and gnaws.

        I know i've said this before, but if we lived just a little bit closer then i'd ask to meet up. To sit and talk. Freely. Safely.

        Thinking of you and your beautiful boys. I wish you had them both, alive and well and for the rest of your life. xx

        ReplyDelete
      4. Anonymous19 August 2013 at 11:37

        The night before we went to the hospital I commented to my husband that I hadn't felt much movement. I KNEW something was odd. I even drank a sprite and laid on my left side. Nothing. And I waited. I was having contractions and let that cloud my logical thinking. But logic to me meant that baby's don't die at nearly 39 weeks. Surely I was just gearing up for labor. I know when I noticed, he was already gone. But still. I did nothing and that causes me pain.

        I have some similar messages and emails that were sent in just the days prior. When I went back to work after losing him I read an email I sent that very morning to my co-workers. I attached some documents they would need while I was gone because I said "just in case this baby comes soon" - he came that day. Just not how he ever, ever should have.

        ReplyDelete
      5. Lj8219 August 2013 at 19:41

        I hate looking at old threads for this reason. And damn facebook saved them even though I had deleted them. Always painful. :(

        ReplyDelete
      6. March is for daffodils19 August 2013 at 19:43

        Oh, it's so hard and awful to go back. I never thought anything was wrong with A, but the day she died, I knew. I didn't feel her move at all, and I knew and I waited to go to the hospital and then I have felt so, so terribly guilty. What if I was wrong? What if I could've gone earlier and saved her? So much love to you, Veronica.

        ReplyDelete
      7. Brooke19 August 2013 at 20:38

        I still can't get over that I had NO IDEA that something had gone so terribly wrong. I feel like such a fool. All those classes, all that reading, all that research. Useless. I was useless. I did nothing, I knew nothing about how to help my baby.

        The guilt is pointless. It doesn't help anyone. Talking about it in therapy helped me a lot. But I don't think it will ever go away completely.

        ReplyDelete
        Replies
        1. Veronica21 August 2013 at 11:25

          I was reading a sleep training website that talked about the guilt that a parent might feeling in letting their baby/child cry. And the author quoted her grandmother, who said, "guilt is like a rocking in a rocking chair. Gives you something to do, but you never get anywhere.".

          So true, but still so hard to 'let it go'. The guilt being 'it'.

          Delete

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