Need to vent...

[emicakess]

Even though it is nice to hear people tell me that it wasnt my fault and there was nothing I could have done to change it, I just feel like I need to vent to strangers who understand without interruption. Everytime I try to bring this stuff up to people I know I feel like I just bum them out too much and the only thing they can tell me is not to blame myself. I dont blame myself! But I just cant help but go back in my head and think about everything that happened during my pregnancy... and sometimes i think maybe I do wonder if it was my fault... Its so hard because doctors cant tell you why it happened.

We said goodbye to our baby at our second ultrasound in February 2013. He was 11.5 weeks when his heart stopped beating and I thought I was 13 weeks at the appointment.
(I dont know why I refer to him as a "he". We were going to name him Alton if he was a boy. I keep referring to him as Alton when I think about him.)

At the time I was working at the hospital at the 22 hour coffee shop. I didnt have a set schedule and I worked 12 hour days. I would work from 5 am to 5 pm and then 5 pm to 5 am 2 days later and visa versa. All the time. It was extremely rough to do this ontop of being in my first trimester. I found information online that a cup of coffee a day was okay to drink during pregnancy... I tried to keep it to a minimum but I probably drank more than that working at a coffee shop such long exhausting hours. I drank shots of espresso instead of drip coffee and I did my best to research how many mg of caffine I could have and how many mg were in the shots of espresso. I planned on quitting smoking cigarettes and I cut down to two a day then to one a day smoking them halves at a time at work only to keep myself awake. We had planned on moving in with my BF's family to help them finacially before we knew about baby and then I was even more excited because we would have live in babysitters. During about halfway through my first trimester I spent a lot of time packing boxes. I knew I shouldnt move them but I did anyway, not as many as I could have and I didnt touch the super heavy ones. I did move some though and now I wish I wouldnt have. Work was really stressful for me between long hours, rude customers, dramatic rude coworkers, and being so tired I just feel like I pushed myself too hard.

I do feel really guilty but mainly because nobody can tell me it wasnt my fault and really mean it. Maybe now that I was able to write this I can move on from the guilt. I dont know. I keep telling my BF that I want to try again, I want a second chance. I keep telling god that I will do better this time...

Thank you for reading and god bless all of you going through this as well

 

[italianlady14]

Hey there. You are right, you will never know if it was "not your fault" for sure. But don't worry, neither will the rest of us. I had a few drinks the first 4-5 weeks of pregnancy cause I didnt know, I was sparring in TKD with 200 lb guys, and kept up some light sparring after I found out. When I was 4 weeks we did an entire remodel of our kitchen where I was lifting lots of heavy things and painting. I colored my hair around 5 weeks pregnant. I had a blighted ovum at 7 weeks, so who knows what I could have took in early on that stopped the baby's growth.

The only thing I can say for you, is because you don't know, all you can do is do better next time. I promised myself I would stop drinking all together when we tried, I won't be dying my hair, and i'll be taking prenatals for a few months before we try again. So I would tell you, try to drop off the caffiene now (which I also have to work on), so that when your tired and pregnant again, you won't need as much. And, try to quit smoking now. I have a family full of smokers I know how hard it is and I can only imagine how much harder it would be when pregnant. You can do this. We can do this.