Oh god, I'm well pissed off now after reading all these posts.. Mrrrrrh, people can be inconsiderate!
1. "You should be damn happy, at least you didn't have to suffer the last weeks of pregnancy"
- Happy?! Why would I be happy? My pregnancy got interrupted, I had to gather up all the strenght within me to be able to transform into a mother 2 months too soon. My body wasn't ready yet, my mind wasn't prepared for it, my home wasn't furnished for a baby. After giving birth to my child she was taken away from me, I didn't get to see her for over 24hours! From that moment onwards, my baby belonged to the hospital, I was the visitor who occasionally go to take that tiny fragile creature in my arms. I would much rather had suffered all the back-and stomach aches, badly slept nights and impatience in the world than watched the poor, tiny child surrounded with these wires and peeping monitors.
2. "She doesn't even look premature"
- What is a premature baby supposed to look like then? Preemies look just like term babies, just smaller.
3. "It's the same change to your life as having a normal baby added to your family, preemie or not. "
- Wow, you really don't know what prematurity brings with it.. It does change your life in a whole different way when you need to be scared every day, wondering how your own child is doing. Never mind the constant running to the hospital and back home again. We pretty much lived in that hospital, in that teeny tiny coffee room. We sat there on that red leather sofa and cried, cried, cried.. If you couldn't find me there, I was sitting next to my wee girl's incubator with my hand gently stroking her little belly. And there too, I just cried. I cried until I ran out of tears. I very much doubt that having a term baby includes all this.. Or are you telling me it does?
4. "My co-worker/friend/godparent/cousin/neighbour had a preemie and now she/he is absolutely fine."
- Am I saying something different then? Of course my child will be "just fine", if only she can hang in there, if she'll survive.
5. "When is she coming home"
- People really should not ask this from a parent that has a preemie still in the hospital. When your child is in the hospital, you know nothing about anything. The hospital staff isn't telling you anything, doesn't guess, estimate or promise. Everything happens a day at a time.
6. "Have you been breastfeeding her/are you still strong enough to try breastfeeding her"
- Oh that pissed me off so much. We struggled so much with the feeding to begin with, and family&friends wouldn't leave me alone about it. Of course I was strong enough to try, of course I tried to breastfeed her. What wouldn't a mother do for her child?!
7. "Is the nosetube still in? It's been there for so long, are they still not taking it out"
- Oh my dear god. Of course the tube was still there, if the poor wee thing can't eat on her own yet! What, should I just have let her die because the tube bothered you? See, it took over 3 weeks for Sophia to learn to eat, until then it was a struggle and she kept falling asleep, crying and turning all cold and blue. She just didn't have enough energy in her to maintain her body temperature whilst eating - had to give up one or the other, hence the tube. It kept my baby alive, that's why it was still there.
8. "But in the end, this went pretty well. You got to recover from the birth whilst your baby was in the hospital"
- Well?! I would rather have recovered at home whilst taking care of my baby than running back and forth between the hospital and the house. That didn't help my recovery, never having time to eat, sleep or rest. I had to walk hundreds of stairs every day and stand by the incubator for most of my days. Does this sound like an easy recovery? .. Exactly.
9. "But surely with modern technology she should be able to come home sooner"
- Well surely modern technology can't affect on her growth. If she simply doesn't have enough energy to eat and hold her body temperature above freezing simultaneously, surely all the machines in the world can't help that. The technology might save you, yes, if you have difficulties breathing like many preemies do. But in our case the modern technology made fuck all difference.
Elveneye
Hope William is doing well xxx
and congratulations! I had this with my milk too, the exact same comment 'is that it?'. That drop took me 4 hours of pumping in tears.
shes just a ickle ickle baby!
