Shortly after the loss of my children I began writing to heal. It was meant to be a short story to send to friends and family to let them know everything that had happened. It has ended up changing not only my life by having lived through one of the most beautiful and defiantly most horrible times of my life but it has touched the lives of so many nameless faces now and I wanted to share it in all its flawed glory.
I was in a state of confusion when I wrote this and to be honest it’s to hard yet to be going through and perfecting every ill-written word and misspoken sentence. I’m terrible with grammar and other perfections of the English language. Maybe this is nothing but to me my children are my whole life and my whole lost future.
Here is the introduction and since this is the time of year when everything began until the end I will post one chapter a week. The names will be changed by the time you read it for legal reasons but otherwise this will be it.
Love,
VeraWang
I was in a state of confusion when I wrote this and to be honest it’s to hard yet to be going through and perfecting every ill-written word and misspoken sentence. I’m terrible with grammar and other perfections of the English language. Maybe this is nothing but to me my children are my whole life and my whole lost future.
Here is the introduction and since this is the time of year when everything began until the end I will post one chapter a week. The names will be changed by the time you read it for legal reasons but otherwise this will be it.
Love,
VeraWang
Copyright 2007 by Rachel ThompsonAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Published 2007 Printed by CafePress.com in the United States of America
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Introduction
This world is full of uncertainty. Pregnancy can be the epitome of that kind of uncertainty for a woman. When we find out we are pregnant we can be filled with an array of emotions and questions, worry and joy.
This can all be stolen out from our under our feet when we find out that something is wrong with our unborn child. For some it’s unexpected at the very end of the pregnancy where no heart beat can be found and for others it’s the AFP test or an amnio that comes back with some bad news for us. Some of us go in on one appointment to discover that the baby has just “disappeared,” if you are early enough in your pregnancy or if it’s later you can find out that there is something terribly wrong at an ultrasound.
News such as this takes a situation that may be a happy moment and turn it upside down. Where there should be happiness there is now only grief. Where you are already anxious you are now depressed and have a whole new set of emotions to deal with. What would have been called post-partum depression will now be called mourning. What would have been sympathized by society is now simply ignored for a lack of understanding. People tend to understand depression but the idea of your child dying is just something to painful to comprehend. Some people choose not to acknowledge the baby as a “baby” to keep the emotions at bay, hurting “mother” in the process.
Then when you have a wanted pregnancy you must face the horrible question of continuing it or letting them go. Either way there are regrets and sadness. No matter what you choose there is emptiness where there should have been a new baby in your life. No matter what you choose there will always be people in society who will look at you as a horrible person who doesn’t know compassion when in reality you are trying to be as compassionate as you know how to be.
According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, about 6.9 babies die for every 1000 that live from statistics in 2000. That is about one death for every 143 lives. According to the March of Dimes the rates were 6.8 deaths for every 1000 live births in 2003 showing no significant improvements. The US ranks 27 for infant mortality according to data collected in 1997. It seems that for all of our science and medical advances that we are still missing something when it comes to saving these frail children’s lives.
It is almost a certainty that you know some one who is dealing with the death of an infant. According to the March of Dimes miscarriages may account for up to 50% of pregnancies. Some of these women know and some don’t ever realize that they were ever pregnant. Data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics says that in 2004 the number of recognized infant deaths was at 5,623 from Birth Defects. These are scary statistics that affect all women in some way. Even if you have healthy children these statistics may make you worry about what could happen next time you tried to get pregnant. If you are a parent already dealing with the death of a child you now may be faced with the thought of, “Can I go through this again?”
This world is full of uncertainty. Pregnancy can be the epitome of that kind of uncertainty for a woman. When we find out we are pregnant we can be filled with an array of emotions and questions, worry and joy.
This can all be stolen out from our under our feet when we find out that something is wrong with our unborn child. For some it’s unexpected at the very end of the pregnancy where no heart beat can be found and for others it’s the AFP test or an amnio that comes back with some bad news for us. Some of us go in on one appointment to discover that the baby has just “disappeared,” if you are early enough in your pregnancy or if it’s later you can find out that there is something terribly wrong at an ultrasound.
News such as this takes a situation that may be a happy moment and turn it upside down. Where there should be happiness there is now only grief. Where you are already anxious you are now depressed and have a whole new set of emotions to deal with. What would have been called post-partum depression will now be called mourning. What would have been sympathized by society is now simply ignored for a lack of understanding. People tend to understand depression but the idea of your child dying is just something to painful to comprehend. Some people choose not to acknowledge the baby as a “baby” to keep the emotions at bay, hurting “mother” in the process.
Then when you have a wanted pregnancy you must face the horrible question of continuing it or letting them go. Either way there are regrets and sadness. No matter what you choose there is emptiness where there should have been a new baby in your life. No matter what you choose there will always be people in society who will look at you as a horrible person who doesn’t know compassion when in reality you are trying to be as compassionate as you know how to be.
According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, about 6.9 babies die for every 1000 that live from statistics in 2000. That is about one death for every 143 lives. According to the March of Dimes the rates were 6.8 deaths for every 1000 live births in 2003 showing no significant improvements. The US ranks 27 for infant mortality according to data collected in 1997. It seems that for all of our science and medical advances that we are still missing something when it comes to saving these frail children’s lives.
It is almost a certainty that you know some one who is dealing with the death of an infant. According to the March of Dimes miscarriages may account for up to 50% of pregnancies. Some of these women know and some don’t ever realize that they were ever pregnant. Data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics says that in 2004 the number of recognized infant deaths was at 5,623 from Birth Defects. These are scary statistics that affect all women in some way. Even if you have healthy children these statistics may make you worry about what could happen next time you tried to get pregnant. If you are a parent already dealing with the death of a child you now may be faced with the thought of, “Can I go through this again?”
The truth is that no parent will ever make a decision out of anything but love and that love goes on forever.
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