Topics Discussed This Month
one year blues
wisdom from the Preemie-l e-mail group
Mary reassures, "Why all the feelings now? Because it's the first time you've had a chance to relax and really think about what you've been through. I didn't have the support on the internet when David's first birthday rolled around, and I thought I was just going crazy bawling my eyes out at Mass on Christmas Eve, thinking about how a year ago on that night I was sitting in a hospital room with a picture of my then day old son taped to the bedrails, talking with a nurse about what it would be like leaving the hospital in the morning with out my baby. I lookedat the beautiful, healthy child I had in my arms and lost it. I still tear up thinking about it. You have every right to feel a loss because you did miss out on a lot. I always suspected that I had missed out on alot by having a preemie, I asked a co-worker after she had her baby if she felt empty inside and she looked at me like I was nuts. But I felt very empty inside after I had David. It wasn't until the birth of my full term daughter 2.5 years after David that I fully realized how much I had missed out on. I held my daughter more in the first 12 hours of her life than I had held david in the first two weeks of his life (and I know I was lucky to be able to hold him at all during that time). Her birth was met with laughter and celebration, David's was met with fear and sobs of relief when he cried. I can't completely explain it, but your loss is very real and very valid. Each year as David's birthday rolls around, I start to feel the same feelings again, although it does get less intense every year. So, hang in there, give yourself permission to grieve the losses you had, this doen't take away from the relief you feel that your son is doing well, nor does it take away from the grief of those who do have children more affectedby their prematurity."

Sue adds, "You are not crazy! Having a preemie is like other traumatic events in life, including the death of someone close to you. And anniversaries are tough times. Even after 12 years, when the day comes that I went into the hospital I feel really weird. I don't usually know what's wrong, then I realize the date and allow myself a little bit of grief. It does get better, though, I promise. Allow yourself to feel the pain and allow the tears to flow, then take a look at Patrick and smile!"

Jan offers, "I just had to write and say "me too." I had a birthday "crash" on their first and second birthdays. This year there were tears of gratitude for our family surviving intact to this point. I was cheerful in the NICU for most of the time also. It turn out that I disassociated from my feelings as a way to survive. They came back for me in the form on flashbacks that are only now getting better. I think that those of us with older children had to keep ourselves togetherf or our other children. I remember coming home from the NICU to put Dan, my oldest to bed. We read "Fireman Small." I almost started crying at the part where the liitle bunny is rescued after falling in the well. I wondered if anyone could rescue the twins... But I had to choke it back and keep reading. I think these are the tears that spill a year later."

Suzie aggrees, "I looked at the calendar today and remembered that exactly five years ago, I'd awakened in labor at just past 33 weeks. I was hospitalized that afternoon and given the mag sulfate/trebutylene "ride" for the next several days. Then I had my placental abruption, and Nolin was born  in an emergency C-section. I still shudder at the memories, but the shuddering grows less each year. I had an insensitive, uninformative group of nurses and doctors presiding over me the whole time. When I hemorraged, I wondered whether I would die.  Iremember the music piped into that cold, stainless-steel operating room while I was getting my section: John Cougar Mellencamp singing, "Oh, yeah,life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone." And then, of course, I remember Nolin's lusty, angry squalling as he was born, and I thought, "There's nothing wrong with that child's lungs." In the last five years, there have been times that I thought I was wacko because I continued to shudder at the memory of Nolin's birth. Twenty-eight months after he was born, I VBACed his brother Neil, full term, a "normal" delivery, but why didn't Neil's wonderful birth plugs the holes poked in my soul by Nolin's birth? Family and friends have even looked at me with the expression, "Get over it!" But after spending nearly six months subscribed to this list, I finally understand that I'm not wacko, and I'm sure not alone in my feelings. I don't think we can ever forget the premature births of our children. The traumas surrounding those births are engraved into our souls. Nobody understands except the parents of other preemies."

Rachel writes, Colin will be one year old on April 3rd and I spent a lot of time in February and March oflast year in the hospital will the blood clot in my leg and with bleeding problems from the partial abruption. I am kind of dreading that day because there is so much else associated with it. I know I will be looking at him and thinking there should be three wonderful babies with us. I know I will be remembering that it is exactly one year since Kaeli died. I know I will be thinking that in a little over a month from then it will be one year since Duncan died. I know I will be remembering that a year ago I thought I was going to die. So much trauma associated with that one day.   You have every right to cry about it. Grieving is a very normal and necessary part of being a preemie mom!! Go ahead and cry. You *definitely* deserve it!!!!!!!!  It is even okay to have a little bit of a break down now, too. You have coped with everything for so long that is okay to not cope with it for a couple of days."
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