What others should know....

[AP]

Taken from the Bliss forum

Please don't tell me how hard the last few months of pregnancy are or complain how horrible it was to be overdue around me.

• Don’t tell me about how lucky I am to not have to go thru the last month or two of pregnancy.

• Please don't tell me it was EASIER because he was SMALLER...

*Please don't say it didn't hurt because he was smaller... I had a dry birth with no painkillers... he was back to back and was face first.... YES it was still PAINFULL

• Don’t tell me how it’s ‘no big deal’ and everything will be fine because people have preemies all the time and they are just fine.

• Don't tell me how lucky I was to have my babies at the hospital so I could recover and catch up on sleep. There is nothing more in this world I wanted then to have my babies with me at all times. There is absolutely nothing 'lucky' about having babies in the hospital.

• Don’t pressure me to have more children quickly, I’ve been through something traumatic. My body has failed me at a very primal level to have a preemie. However, if I want more children please don’t tell me that I’m nuts for wanting one, Please support my choices.

• Research is great. Educating yourself is awesome. Please do not act like you are an expert on the subject because you read something on the internet or know a friend of a friend. Each baby is unique and different, and as such my baby may not fit into what you have read. Please do not attempt to teach me about my baby.

• I appreciate that you had a close friend or family member with a baby in the NICU and you have seen a NICU baby before. I hate to sound harsh, but if it wasn't YOUR baby you really cannot completely understand how I feel.

• PLEASE, PLEASE don't tell me that my baby is so big, and already caught up that couldn't possibly have been in the NICU.

• Don't then ask me why my baby isn't doing such-and-so yet, so-and-so's baby is doing it who was born within days...

• Don't tell me how "LUCKY" I am to have a SMALL baby...I didn't WANT a small baby...

• Ask me questions! There's a lot about preemie care and NICU life that people don't understand, not to mention questions about my baby's condition. Don't be afraid to ask me...most of the time I am willing to answer and explain because talking about it helps me understand it too, and if you understand more then you can be more supportive.

• Also if I am crying it isn't Post Partum Depression, it's because all my hopes and dreams for a healthy pregnancy and healthy baby have blown up. I don't need medication, I need support!

• That said, mommies of Preemies/Nicu babies are at high risk for Post Partum Depression. Please keep an eye on me, without smothering me, and help me get needed support and treatment if PPD does hit me.

• Ignore the tubes and wires and tell me he is BEAUTIFUL. Because he is.

• Please let me know if you are sick. If I get sick, I can't see my baby, so I don't want to risk it. If you are sick at all, please do not come and see my baby.

• Just because they are now 11 and 12 pounds doesn't mean they are immunologically as strong as term babies at that size.

• Please don't preach to me. If you have not been here as the mother of a sick baby, you don't know anything about this.

• I'm still a new mom. I'm hormonal. Please be kind to me, and give me lots of breaks for any bad behavior.

• Please don’t ask what I did to cause this.

• Please ask how I am, I may need a shoulder.

• I'm NOT "over it" and I might not EVER be. Try not to be awkward, change the subject, or roll your eyes if I still get emotional about my son's birth and NICU experience 2 years later.

• Don't ask when I'm having more children, or if I will try for a girl, or nod knowingly and say 'It is probably for the best" if I say we are done having children.

• I don’t have the time or emotional energy to deal with your drama. Please keep it to yourself.

• Please don't talk about how easy it was for you to breastfeed and pump. "

* Please don't hold off giving us a "congratulations" card in case "something bad" happens. My baby may be premature but that doesn't mean we can't celebrate his birth. Not getting those cards in the first few days after the birth hurts more than you could know.

* dont look at me strangely when you ask me how old my baby is. I didnt say weeks instead of days by mistake, he is tiny but is ... weeks old already. I DO know my baby's age.

* Please don't tell me my birth COULDN'T possibly have been as PAINFUL as yours becuase your baby was full term/overdue. Contractions do not differ in pain due to the size of a baby.

* Please don't presume I do not care about my baby because I don't spend every minute of my day at the hospital with him - to leave him there is the hardest thing to do but I need to look after myself too.

* Please do not assume I do not love/want my baby because you have seen me smiling or laughing. I will deal with things in my own way and you have no way of knowing how I am feeling on the INSIDE.

* Please don't look down on me for stopping expressing/breast feeding... you do not know how much it broke my heart when i stopped producing enough milk

*please dont tell me how EASY breast feeding is.. i NEVER got the chance to try establish it.

 

[grumpymoo]

some really good points sb, could relate to more than a few! dont you wish you could hand it out to everyone you come in contact with?

 

[DonnaBallona]

fab post, and I agree-wish I could have handed that out to a few people Iv met!! Im gonna add a few.. .

*Dont tell me you wish you'd been asleep for your section too. Thats a terrible thing to wish. Id have given anything, anything at all to meet my baby when she was born.

*Dont then tell me that I had the 'easy' option by having a section when you see me visiting my baby daughter in scbu. WTH?? Are you nuts? Im being pushed around in my hospital bed and sleeping in intensive care for a reason you know. Moron.

Phew. Rant over.

Sorry. feeling a little upset this morning.

 

[Mumof42009]

Thanks for posted that i wish could hand that out to every person who has been saying to me lately 'oh youve normally had them by now' mm no i would rather my little man stay put were he is to grow!

 

[AP]

omg do people really say that to you!!!! :saywha:

 

[Dona]

Another one to add

* Please don't tell me that you understand as your Baby was also premature...4 weeks early!! To me thats not premature and nothing like what Archie went through.

* Please don't tell me that everything will be fine..

My rant over too.

 

[Lottie86]

another couple...

* Your baby may indeed have been born at the same gestation as mine but this does not mean you know exactly how I feel/what I went through, the difference is your baby was perfectly 'normal' and was by your side on the maternity ward from immediately after birth and went home with you when you were discharged after 12 hours and has been perfectly fine since. No being whisked away at birth before you could see them/hold them, no NICU, no CPAP, no PDA, no ongoing problems due to being early etc.

*Don't say to me that just because my baby was born at 35 weeks he shouldn't have had any problems at all. He did and still does have problems due to arriving early, you telling me he shouldn't have any issues doesn't change anything.

* Don't say to me when you see me out with my baby, "isn't he small what's wrong with him" or say "Awww isn't he gor..." and then stop halfway through when you see his NG tube and don't finish the sentence. He is still absolutely gorgeous to me whether he has a tube or not and it really hurts me when you say things like that.

*If you are curious about why he has a tube please ask me, do not mutter with your friends and point at him. You'd find it rude if I pointed at you and muttered comments about you when I don't know you so why do you feel you have the right to do so about my baby?

*Ask how *I* am occasionally rather than always just asking how my baby is. I do exist.

*I'm not coping as well as you think. I appreciate that you are trying to be kind telling me that you are amazed how well I'm coping however this tends to just make me feel bad for not coping as well as you think and unable to admit to you how I really feel.


I wish people understood that every prem baby is their own individual person with their own story and if they have problems from being early then they have their own problems which may or may not be similar to other babies born at that gestation.

 

[DonnaBallona]

.

 

[hayley x]

This is a really good thread, I just cant believe people actually say these things!!! I read something like this about baby's death's its amazing what comes out of peoples mouthes!! xxx

 

[AP]

*dont tell me you/someone you know had a baby far earlier and it was far more worse for you/them. Its really not a competition!

 

[Foogirl]

I will be absolutely fair to those around me, not one person came out with any of these things. There were a few people who said some well meaning things which seemed a little insensitive and plenty of people who had had a premature baby which was now 2, 7, 15, 27..... People simply want to give you hope and if their situation was different it doesn't change their intentions.

I said a few of these things myself. e.g I did see the fact that I was able to get better with plenty of rest, as one of the good things to come out of a bad situation. Of course I would rather have had her home, but I believe in seeing the silver linings where they may be.

I do think we have to remember people who haven't been through it are just trying to be kind. An old friend of mine had twins who were born very early and one of whom died. I wrote her a letter letting her know I was here if she needed me. I'm not at all sure I congratulated her at all in the whole letter. And I should have. I probably said some things which were insensitive. I know I couldn't possibly have understood what she was going through and I didn't pretend I did. But in all of it, I was genuinely concerned for her and her wee boy. That I didn't know what to say, didn't make me a bad person.

And that's the one thought I kept in my mind when the shoe was on the other foot!

*Ask how *I* am occasionally rather than always just asking how my baby is. I do exist.

I think this goes for ALL mums doesn't it! We are now just an after thought.

 

[Dona]

*dont tell me you/someone you know had a baby far earlier and it was far more worse for you/them. Its really not a competition!

Ive had that one!

 

[AP]

bump!

 

[Agiboma]

Great thread ladies I have not had anyone say any of those things to me yet but my Micah was just born a few days ago

 

[AP]

Bumping up! Just found this!

^^ omg Agiboma it was THAT long ago!

 

[confused87com]

* Please don't hold off giving us a "congratulations" card in case "something bad" happens. My baby may be premature but that doesn't mean we can't celebrate his birth. Not getting those cards in the first few days after the birth hurts more than you could know.

brillaint thread. My son is so nearly 2 now, i still want to blub about his birth somedays, it doesnt feel nice for it to be brushed off...'oh hes fine now'...doesnt mean i ddint go through it and it doesnt still haunt me.
It hurt so much not to get cards, i cant believe people can think holding off is a good idea. My old work ( one main reason i left) never sent me a congratulations card, not even a word...every other woman having babies there got a card and flowers....my husbands work did, i was so thankful for that. Now another girl from my old work had her baby at 28 weeks, we arent close so i wont get invloved, its not my place, but i have heard they have been holding off sending anything' just in case'. i have told them its wrong and wont help to delay. Poor girl had her baby in the doctors surgery...went to midwife with some cramps.....ambulance took 45 minutes to get there! no oxygen at the doctors...madness

 

[jandksmommy]

Oh my... this actually made me cry! I know that people are well intended and that they just don't know how to be behave when faced with a new mom of a very sick premature baby but i had so much of those things said to me. It made me angry and sad, made me want to avoid going out in public, avoid answering the phone.... Glad those feelings are normal

 

[DonnaBallona]

OMG when I first posted in this thread I only had 1 baby; and now I have 3 heres another (and my personal favourite)

* don't stand behind us in a queue and loudly discuss my baby!!!! we CAN hear you- 'ooh look at that poor baby! I wonder what's wrong with him? maybe he was early?! do you think that's oxygen, or food? poor thing'

that makes me FURIOUS, it really does! I just do not know why people think we can't hear them when they are standing directly behind us.

xx

 

[DHime]

hi. haven't posted here before but loved the list so much i put it on my facebook. people ask me all the time why i don't bring him in public. i work very hard not to say, "because a cold will kill him and u morons won't stay home when sick!".
sorry for typing badly, venting feeding tube with 1 hand and typing with the other. i also had a ton of people saying i didn't the same pain as a full term.
hello?! 12 hrs of labor all natural and i don't know pain?! i can't begin to describe how angry that makes me.
tell me about pain when you see your baby in a medical coma for 2 weeks.
when everyone just drops off the baby shower stuff after the party was cxld. because you went into labor early. i want my shower dammit! i want something/anything normal......
when you are scared to turn your back for even a moment without something going wrong.
when watching your baby have 5 brady's in 5 minutes...
those moments we all went to our cars and cried our hearts out when no one was looking.
when u have to stifle tears every time someone hugs you...

i could go on and on....

 

[AP]

Same pain as a full term?? I've had a term baby since posting this thread and the preemie was waaaaay harder, I had all the pain relief I could get too, and none with my term! Love how people can comment when they haven't been there.... Not!