Mary's birthday is tomorrow, June 5th. For the past few weeks, the weight has gotten heavier and heavier. I know today and early tomorrow will be the worst part of it. When we arrive at the cemetary, there will be some tears shed as we remember her and her brief life. Then we will release the balloons and have a picnic, with cupcakes freshly baked by us. This will repeat every year as it has since her death. At some point, that day is supposed to get easier- I'm just not sure when.
Three years later, I am still angry. How could this midwife reassure us that our daughter was in perfect health when she was in trouble? This midwife just walked away. Oddly enough, she had asked an old friend if she had heard from me just days before the old friend lost her baby. I bet she wonders about me. I'm here warning other parents about you and you know it. My guess is she wanted to know what I've been up to and what to watch out for or maybe hoping my public endeavors would be over. I want her to remember my daughter and want her to remember me until her dying day. I probably wouldn't hate her so much if there had been some sort of accountability. Saying "please don't sue me, please don't believe the coroner- believe me, and don't go after homebirth" doesn't quite say "I'm sorry for fucking up so majorly". Do I care if my baby's death impacted her emotionally? Nope, not at all. I don't feel that midwives should be able to say "Omg, I'm so so sad, this has impacted me horribly" and then just walk like nothing happened. If they aren't dealing with the emotions that come from losing their baby day in and day out, their emotions mean nothing. Yeah, this is just a small glance into my anger.
I am still so very sad. I still feel at fault (yep, score 1 for the advocate camp who gloats when a mom carries this burden or encourages her to feel this badly). I know people remind me all the time that it was all the midwife's fault. BUT I chose her and chose to homebirth. Nobody held a gun to my head and made me do it. Did I have all the information available? No, I didn't. Still, I should have. I live every day knowing I made a stupid decision and my baby paid the ultimate price for it. This has caused a lot of mental stress/anguish. I've dealt with suicidal thoughts on and off since she died. Sometimes the weight of it all is more than I can handle. I battle depression. I know the guilt is what causes all of this, but, nothing I can ever do will ever get rid of that- unless time travel becomes an option or I die. Nobody should ever feel this. Not a single day goes by that I don't miss her and wish I had done things much differently. What I wouldn't give to of been able to experience all those things that most parents take for granted. Late nights with spit up, crying, and poo would of been welcomed.
I will continue on in my advocacy, for not only my precious daughter, but for all the babies who have died at the hands of negligent homebirth midwives.
Happy Birthday, Mary Beth. I wish you were here celebrating this with us. You will always be loved and remembered, Princess!!!
7 comments:
Happy birthday to your precious daughter, Mary. I know homebirth, and I know death, but not together. I know what it is like to be "sucked" in by rhetoric of others. I did not get prenatal care for the son I had that passed away, because of the very wrong thinking of UC'ing. He passed during his 18th week. I know the lack of prenatal care did not kill him. But, maybe prenatal care could have pinpointed a problem to help him survive. Or, at the very least with prenatal care I could have seen him alive on U/S or heard his heart on a doppler. I have only known him in death and not life. I feel very guilty too, like you and that guilt will never go away. But, you made the decisions you thought were right at the time, as we can never know all the answers.
Take care tomorrow and I hope the day shines peace on you and your whole family.
happy birthday to a very loved and very missed Mary Beth..... i feel for so much of this post. thank you for sharing your heart...
Happy birthday to your beautiful little girl. I'm so sorry.
Ditto what ccc said - you made the best decision you thought you could at the time. Hindsight is soooo sooooo cruel in that it is 20/20. I also tried for a homebirth, and while my little boy is with me and healthy today, I had to transfer for a c-section. It was like everything the NBC community told me was exactly opposite and upon further reading I'm shocked at what I did. Reading your blog gives me shivers because I could have been you and I got so very lucky. But somehow I still relate to your regret even though I didn't have to pay that price.
Please don't be too hard on yourself. Keep taking it one day at a time.
Happy Birthday to sweet little Mary Beth. I know that she must be proud of her Momma for trying to help other moms and babies from experiencing such tragedy. I hope that someday you will be able to forgive yourself for an outcome that was not your fault. I believe it is a Buddhist saying, and it bears repeating: "Compassion is incomplete unless it includes compassion for yourself." Be kind to yourself, Bambi.
I am a regular reader here, since I read yours and Mary Beth's story on Hurt By Homebirth. I don't always comment, but I always feel and I always pray.
I am due at the end of the month with our tenth, a little girl, we will have her in hospital. I too had a terrible homebirth experience. But my child is with me.
Your Mary was such a beautiful little girl, it just hurts to see that she died. I am so terribly sorry. I agree with the previous comments, you need to forgive yourself. If you were anything like where I was, you likely had been taught/thought that going to the hospital was not in yours nor Mary Beth's best interests. In fact, you probably thought you were safer at home, and that's what stopped me from going in to the hospital when I had my PPH, and she said it was "all good". It's almost difficult to remember the mind frame that had me there. But I honestly thought that interventions at the hospital were what killed babies... *sigh*
(((((((( hugs )))))))))
Thank you for sharing your broken heart. And I wish your sweet little angel a "happy birthday," too. Perhaps you can take comfort in knowing that reading of your terrible sadness and regret will help me SIGNIFICANTLY when I talk with other women about birthing options. I am an aspiring labor and delivery nurse/hospital midwife. I will be able to tell women, "Please think very carefully about having a home birth. You can't really predict if something will go wrong, and the pain and regret if anything does go wrong is almost unbearable. I've read women's stories and their heartache is more than any woman should have to experience." Out of your grief WILL come redemptive things. I pray that God would would give you peace, faith, and healing that goes way beyond anything you can fathom."He is near to the brokenhearted and crushed in spirit..." The Lord bless you.
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