This is what everyone who is trying to conceive should be told. Because I don't think all of us realize that the responsibility of being a parent starts from the moment you get that positive pregnancy test. Suddenly, you are the keeper of a life that is not your own. Your educated guess may be called upon in a time of trouble to make a decision that will effect someone other than you. This burden falls on the shoulders of a small few, however, just like miscarriage fetal death is the dirty little secret of pregnancy that you don't hear about until it happens to you.
I have been reading the blog of a woman who has found out that her 20+ week fetus has a condition that is incompatible with life outside the womb. She and her partner are making the agonizing decision as to how to proceed.
I also read the blog of a woman who chose to terminate and was discussing how horrible it was to be walking into the hospital to end the pregnancy and feeling the baby kick her. I can't imagine what must've been going through her mind. At this point I can't even wrap my mind around it.
These decisions are not easy to make and fracture the reality of the person making them forever. Life must seem divided from that point on...the time before and the time after.
Why, then, don't we hear about these things more often?
Is it because doctors don't want to frighten pregnant women? Technically, most women will never even come close to having to make a decision like this. So I guess OBs are playing the odds that past a certain point a woman will be bringing a healthy baby home. Because most of the time that is what happens.
I personally don't like the idea of everything being fine until its not. I suppose this is why I want to know about what happens in the real world to real people. These women are not any different from me. One day I could be one of them. I would rather hear about the heartache and imagine the tragic what ifs than wake up one day and be blindsided. Maybe I am the only pregnant woman in the world who feels like this. But I just can't imagine that these women have suffered and lost for nothing.
Yes, this is a depressing post. But this is what I am thinking about nowadays as the day of the big ultrasound approaches. There are no guarantees in life.
I have been reading the blog of a woman who has found out that her 20+ week fetus has a condition that is incompatible with life outside the womb. She and her partner are making the agonizing decision as to how to proceed.
I also read the blog of a woman who chose to terminate and was discussing how horrible it was to be walking into the hospital to end the pregnancy and feeling the baby kick her. I can't imagine what must've been going through her mind. At this point I can't even wrap my mind around it.
These decisions are not easy to make and fracture the reality of the person making them forever. Life must seem divided from that point on...the time before and the time after.
Why, then, don't we hear about these things more often?
Is it because doctors don't want to frighten pregnant women? Technically, most women will never even come close to having to make a decision like this. So I guess OBs are playing the odds that past a certain point a woman will be bringing a healthy baby home. Because most of the time that is what happens.
I personally don't like the idea of everything being fine until its not. I suppose this is why I want to know about what happens in the real world to real people. These women are not any different from me. One day I could be one of them. I would rather hear about the heartache and imagine the tragic what ifs than wake up one day and be blindsided. Maybe I am the only pregnant woman in the world who feels like this. But I just can't imagine that these women have suffered and lost for nothing.
Yes, this is a depressing post. But this is what I am thinking about nowadays as the day of the big ultrasound approaches. There are no guarantees in life.
3 comments:
When you have something bad happen to you once... you constantly live life saying, "what if." I know that a miscarriage isn't the most tragic thing that could happen to a woman... but in my life, so far, it has been one of the worst experiences. It is because of this miscarriage that I am like you and want to know what could go wrong. I don't go crazy over it- I don't freak out... but I calmly want to know what the hell could happen to my baby- and what I would do if it did happen.
It's depressing to live life like this... I actually hate that I do live like this. But it's my reality. I don't want this sugar coated. I want to prepare.
My heart aches for these women... my God, I can't imagine.
And once you know that things can go wrong, you can't unknow it.
I want to know as well and you know what doctors should tell you if you ask, mine didn't.
those stories are so sad.
I thought I was going to be one of those women and it almost killed me. Turned out my baby's condition was not fatal, but that week I thought it was aged me ten years.
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