Dealings
WHY IS THIS SO HARD? Giving Yourself Permission to Fall Apart

Adding to your stress, you may often feel isolated as those around you don’t fully appreciate the emotional impact of your baby’s premature birth. While your infant lays in the hospital, relatives and friends may have little access or opportunity to welcome this new family member. The less obvious losses parents feel are sometimes hard for others to understand. If the baby is relatively stable, others might question why you are grieving. If the baby is critically ill, they might not understand your grief around issues seemingly unrelated to your baby’s day-to-day survival. Their investment in a baby who may die is circumspect. Even you and your partner may be coping with this crisis very differently. This can be an intensely lonely time.

Contrary to what you may have hoped, homecoming does not offer instant relief. Perhaps your baby’s long-term prognosis remains uncertain. You are only too well aware that many premature babies are at high risk for complications, even death, from common childhood illnesses. Even when preemies grow healthy and robust, many parents feel that their children remain vulnerable. Fear can be a constant companion. Concerns about the long-term developmental progress can arise at any time. At a time when you had hoped that things would finally settle down, you are faced with a new set of parenting challenges and complicated feelings.

While it may seem discouraging to read through this long list of challenges, doing so may also encourage you to accept your feelings of sorrow, fear, failure, anger, confusion and guilt. These are natural reactions to a terrible situation. Your sorrow is for your losses; your fear is of the unknown. Feelings of failure arise because you could do nothing to prevent your plans and dreams from turning into a nightmare. Anger is your protest against the situation and the unfairness of fate. Confusion is natural as you step into the foreign world and language of the NICU. And guilt comes from your parenting instincts and natural feelings of responsibility.

So, give yourself permission to feel overwhelmed and to fall apart. Although you may be concerned that if you let go, you’ll never be able to pull yourself back together, rest assured that you will prevail. One mother described falling apart and then observed that when she picked up the pieces, she was able to improve how she put them back together. Growth does happen in the face of adversity.

It can also help to sort through your feelings and untangle them from each other. Allow yourself to grieve, confront your fears, and remind yourself that you are doing the best you can to nurture and protect your baby. Give yourself time to adjust to the sights and sounds of the NICU, and encourage yourself to ask questions. Remind yourself that feeling guilty is not the same as being guilty. It can also help to appreciate the joy, hope, pride, delight, confidence and love whenever and wherever you can find it. And over time, as you and your baby adjust, it is those positive feelings that will govern your lives.